ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL DRAMATIS PERSONAE KING OF FRANCE (KING:) DUKE OF FLORENCE (DUKE:) BERTRAM Count of Rousillon. LAFEU an old lord. PAROLLES a follower of Bertram. Steward | | servants to the Countess of Rousillon. Clown | A Page. (Page:) COUNTESS OF ROUSILLON mother to Bertram. (COUNTESS:) HELENA a gentlewoman protected by the Countess. An old Widow of Florence. (Widow:) DIANA daughter to the Widow. VIOLENTA | | neighbours and friends to the Widow. MARIANA | Lords, Officers, Soldiers, &c., French and Florentine. (First Lord:) (Second Lord:) (Fourth Lord:) (First Gentleman:) (Second Gentleman:) (First Soldier:) (Gentleman:) SCENE Rousillon; Paris; Florence; Marseilles. ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL ACT I SCENE I Rousillon. The COUNT's palace. [Enter BERTRAM, the COUNTESS of Rousillon, HELENA, and LAFEU, all in black] COUNTESS In delivering my son from me, I bury a second husband. BERTRAM And I in going, madam, weep o'er my father's death anew: but I must attend his majesty's command, to whom I am now in ward, evermore in subjection. LAFEU You shall find of the king a husband, madam; you, sir, a father: he that so generally is at all times good must of necessity hold his virtue to you; whose worthiness would stir it up where it wanted rather than lack it where there is such abundance. COUNTESS What hope is there of his majesty's amendment? LAFEU He hath abandoned his physicians, madam; under whose practises he hath persecuted time with hope, and finds no other advantage in the process but only the losing of hope by time. COUNTESS This young gentlewoman had a father,--O, that 'had'! how sad a passage 'tis!--whose skill was almost as great as his honesty; had it stretched so far, would have made nature immortal, and death should have play for lack of work. Would, for the king's sake, he were living! I think it would be the death of the king's disease. LAFEU How called you the man you speak of, madam? COUNTESS He was famous, sir, in his profession, and it was his great right to be so: Gerard de Narbon. LAFEU He was excellent indeed, madam: the king very lately spoke of him admiringly and mourningly: he was skilful enough to have lived still, if knowledge could be set up against mortality. BERTRAM What is it, my good lord, the king languishes of? LAFEU A fistula, my lord. BERTRAM I heard not of it before. LAFEU I would it were not notorious. Was this gentlewoman the daughter of Gerard de Narbon? COUNTESS His sole child, my lord, and bequeathed to my overlooking. I have those hopes of her good that her education promises; her dispositions she inherits, which makes fair gifts fairer; for where an unclean mind carries virtuous qualities, there commendations go with pity; they are virtues and traitors too; in her they are the better for their simpleness; she derives her honesty and achieves her goodness. LAFEU Your commendations, madam, get from her tears. COUNTESS 'Tis the best brine a maiden can season her praise in. The remembrance of her father never approaches her heart but the tyranny of her sorrows takes all livelihood from her cheek. No more of this, Helena; go to, no more; lest it be rather thought you affect a sorrow than have it. HELENA I do affect a sorrow indeed, but I have it too. LAFEU Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead, excessive grief the enemy to the living. COUNTESS If the living be enemy to the grief, the excess makes it soon mortal. BERTRAM Madam, I desire your holy wishes. LAFEU How understand we that? COUNTESS Be thou blest, Bertram, and succeed thy father In manners, as in shape! thy blood and virtue Contend for empire in thee, and thy goodness Share with thy birthright! Love all, trust a few, Do wrong to none: be able for thine enemy Rather in power than use, and keep thy friend Under thy own life's key: be cheque'd for silence, But never tax'd for speech. What heaven more will, That thee may furnish and my prayers pluck down, Fall on thy head! Farewell, my lord; 'Tis an unseason'd courtier; good my lord, Advise him. LAFEU He cannot want the best That shall attend his love. COUNTESS Heaven bless him! Farewell, Bertram. [Exit] BERTRAM [To HELENA] The best wishes that can be forged in your thoughts be servants to you! Be comfortable to my mother, your mistress, and make much of her. LAFEU Farewell, pretty lady: you must hold the credit of your father. [Exeunt BERTRAM and LAFEU] HELENA O, were that all! I think not on my father; And these great tears grace his remembrance more Than those I shed for him. What was he like? I have forgot him: my imagination Carries no favour in't but Bertram's. I am undone: there is no living, none, If Bertram be away. 'Twere all one That I should love a bright particular star And think to wed it, he is so above me: In his bright radiance and collateral light Must I be comforted, not in his sphere. The ambition in my love thus plagues itself: The hind that would be mated by the lion Must die for love. 'Twas pretty, though plague, To see him every hour; to sit and draw His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls, In our heart's table; heart too capable Of every line and trick of his sweet favour: But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy Must sanctify his reliques. Who comes here? [Enter PAROLLES] [Aside] One that goes with him: I love him for his sake; And yet I know him a notorious liar, Think him a great way fool, solely a coward; Yet these fixed evils sit so fit in him, That they take place, when virtue's steely bones Look bleak i' the cold wind: withal, full oft we see Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly. PAROLLES Save you, fair queen! HELENA And you, monarch! PAROLLES No. HELENA And no. PAROLLES Are you meditating on virginity? HELENA Ay. You have some stain of soldier in you: let me ask you a question. Man is enemy to virginity; how may we barricado it against him? PAROLLES Keep him out. HELENA But he assails; and our virginity, though valiant, in the defence yet is weak: unfold to us some warlike resistance. PAROLLES There is none: man, sitting down before you, will undermine you and blow you up. HELENA Bless our poor virginity from underminers and blowers up! Is there no military policy, how virgins might blow up men? PAROLLES Virginity being blown down, man will quicklier be blown up: marry, in blowing him down again, with the breach yourselves made, you lose your city. It is not politic in the commonwealth of nature to preserve virginity. Loss of virginity is rational increase and there was never virgin got till virginity was first lost. That you were made of is metal to make virgins. Virginity by being once lost may be ten times found; by being ever kept, it is ever lost: 'tis too cold a companion; away with 't! HELENA I will stand for 't a little, though therefore I die a virgin. PAROLLES There's little can be said in 't; 'tis against the rule of nature. To speak on the part of virginity, is to accuse your mothers; which is most infallible disobedience. He that hangs himself is a virgin: virginity murders itself and should be buried in highways out of all sanctified limit, as a desperate offendress against nature. Virginity breeds mites, much like a cheese; consumes itself to the very paring, and so dies with feeding his own stomach. Besides, virginity is peevish, proud, idle, made of self-love, which is the most inhibited sin in the canon. Keep it not; you cannot choose but loose by't: out with 't! within ten year it will make itself ten, which is a goodly increase; and the principal itself not much the worse: away with 't! HELENA How might one do, sir, to lose it to her own liking? PAROLLES Let me see: marry, ill, to like him that ne'er it likes. 'Tis a commodity will lose the gloss with lying; the longer kept, the less worth: off with 't while 'tis vendible; answer the time of request. Virginity, like an old courtier, wears her cap out of fashion: richly suited, but unsuitable: just like the brooch and the tooth-pick, which wear not now. Your date is better in your pie and your porridge than in your cheek; and your virginity, your old virginity, is like one of our French withered pears, it looks ill, it eats drily; marry, 'tis a withered pear; it was formerly better; marry, yet 'tis a withered pear: will you anything with it? HELENA Not my virginity yet [ ] There shall your master have a thousand loves, A mother and a mistress and a friend, A phoenix, captain and an enemy, A guide, a goddess, and a sovereign, A counsellor, a traitress, and a dear; His humble ambition, proud humility, His jarring concord, and his discord dulcet, His faith, his sweet disaster; with a world Of pretty, fond, adoptious christendoms, That blinking Cupid gossips. Now shall he-- I know not what he shall. God send him well! The court's a learning place, and he is one-- PAROLLES What one, i' faith? HELENA That I wish well. 'Tis pity-- PAROLLES What's pity? HELENA That wishing well had not a body in't, Which might be felt; that we, the poorer born, Whose baser stars do shut us up in wishes, Might with effects of them follow our friends, And show what we alone must think, which never Return us thanks. [Enter Page] Page Monsieur Parolles, my lord calls for you. [Exit] PAROLLES Little Helen, farewell; if I can remember thee, I will think of thee at court. HELENA Monsieur Parolles, you were born under a charitable star. PAROLLES Under Mars, I. HELENA I especially think, under Mars. PAROLLES Why under Mars? HELENA The wars have so kept you under that you must needs be born under Mars. PAROLLES When he was predominant. HELENA When he was retrograde, I think, rather. PAROLLES Why think you so? HELENA You go so much backward when you fight. PAROLLES That's for advantage. HELENA So is running away, when fear proposes the safety; but the composition that your valour and fear makes in you is a virtue of a good wing, and I like the wear well. PAROLLES I am so full of businesses, I cannot answer thee acutely. I will return perfect courtier; in the which, my instruction shall serve to naturalize thee, so thou wilt be capable of a courtier's counsel and understand what advice shall thrust upon thee; else thou diest in thine unthankfulness, and thine ignorance makes thee away: farewell. When thou hast leisure, say thy prayers; when thou hast none, remember thy friends; get thee a good husband, and use him as he uses thee; so, farewell. [Exit] HELENA Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, Which we ascribe to heaven: the fated sky Gives us free scope, only doth backward pull Our slow designs when we ourselves are dull. What power is it which mounts my love so high, That makes me see, and cannot feed mine eye? The mightiest space in fortune nature brings To join like likes and kiss like native things. Impossible be strange attempts to those That weigh their pains in sense and do suppose What hath been cannot be: who ever strove So show her merit, that did miss her love? The king's disease--my project may deceive me, But my intents are fix'd and will not leave me. [Exit] ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL ACT I SCENE II Paris. The KING's palace. [Flourish of cornets. Enter the KING of France, with letters, and divers Attendants] KING The Florentines and Senoys are by the ears; Have fought with equal fortune and continue A braving war. First Lord So 'tis reported, sir. KING Nay, 'tis most credible; we here received it A certainty, vouch'd from our cousin Austria, With caution that the Florentine will move us For speedy aid; wherein our dearest friend Prejudicates the business and would seem To have us make denial. First Lord His love and wisdom, Approved so to your majesty, may plead For amplest credence. KING He hath arm'd our answer, And Florence is denied before he comes: Yet, for our gentlemen that mean to see The Tuscan service, freely have they leave To stand on either part. Second Lord It well may serve A nursery to our gentry, who are sick For breathing and exploit. KING What's he comes here? [Enter BERTRAM, LAFEU, and PAROLLES] First Lord It is the Count Rousillon, my good lord, Young Bertram. KING Youth, thou bear'st thy father's face; Frank nature, rather curious than in haste, Hath well composed thee. Thy father's moral parts Mayst thou inherit too! Welcome to Paris. BERTRAM My thanks and duty are your majesty's. KING I would I had that corporal soundness now, As when thy father and myself in friendship First tried our soldiership! He did look far Into the service of the time and was Discipled of the bravest: he lasted long; But on us both did haggish age steal on And wore us out of act. It much repairs me To talk of your good father. In his youth He had the wit which I can well observe To-day in our young lords; but they may jest Till their own scorn return to them unnoted Ere they can hide their levity in honour; So like a courtier, contempt nor bitterness Were in his pride or sharpness; if they were, His equal had awaked them, and his honour, Clock to itself, knew the true minute when Exception bid him speak, and at this time His tongue obey'd his hand: who were below him He used as creatures of another place And bow'd his eminent top to their low ranks, Making them proud of his humility, In their poor praise he humbled. Such a man Might be a copy to these younger times; Which, follow'd well, would demonstrate them now But goers backward. BERTRAM His good remembrance, sir, Lies richer in your thoughts than on his tomb; So in approof lives not his epitaph As in your royal speech. KING Would I were with him! He would always say-- Methinks I hear him now; his plausive words He scatter'd not in ears, but grafted them, To grow there and to bear,--'Let me not live,'-- This his good melancholy oft began, On the catastrophe and heel of pastime, When it was out,--'Let me not live,' quoth he, 'After my flame lacks oil, to be the snuff Of younger spirits, whose apprehensive senses All but new things disdain; whose judgments are Mere fathers of their garments; whose constancies Expire before their fashions.' This he wish'd; I after him do after him wish too, Since I nor wax nor honey can bring home, I quickly were dissolved from my hive, To give some labourers room. Second Lord You are loved, sir: They that least lend it you shall lack you first. KING I fill a place, I know't. How long is't, count, Since the physician at your father's died? He was much famed. BERTRAM Some six months since, my lord. KING If he were living, I would try him yet. Lend me an arm; the rest have worn me out With several applications; nature and sickness Debate it at their leisure. Welcome, count; My son's no dearer. BERTRAM Thank your majesty. [Exeunt. Flourish] ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL ACT I SCENE III Rousillon. The COUNT's palace. [Enter COUNTESS, Steward, and Clown] COUNTESS I will now hear; what say you of this gentlewoman? Steward Madam, the care I have had to even your content, I wish might be found in the calendar of my past endeavours; for then we wound our modesty and make foul the clearness of our deservings, when of ourselves we publish them. COUNTESS What does this knave here? Get you gone, sirrah: the complaints I have heard of you I do not all believe: 'tis my slowness that I do not; for I know you lack not folly to commit them, and have ability enough to make such knaveries yours. Clown 'Tis not unknown to you, madam, I am a poor fellow. COUNTESS Well, sir. Clown No, madam, 'tis not so well that I am poor, though many of the rich are damned: but, if I may have your ladyship's good will to go to the world, Isbel the woman and I will do as we may. COUNTESS Wilt thou needs be a beggar? Clown I do beg your good will in this case. COUNTESS In what case? Clown In Isbel's case and mine own. Service is no heritage: and I think I shall never have the blessing of God till I have issue o' my body; for they say barnes are blessings. COUNTESS Tell me thy reason why thou wilt marry. Clown My poor body, madam, requires it: I am driven on by the flesh; and he must needs go that the devil drives. COUNTESS Is this all your worship's reason? Clown Faith, madam, I have other holy reasons such as they are. COUNTESS May the world know them? Clown I have been, madam, a wicked creature, as you and all flesh and blood are; and, indeed, I do marry that I may repent. COUNTESS Thy marriage, sooner than thy wickedness. Clown I am out o' friends, madam; and I hope to have friends for my wife's sake. COUNTESS Such friends are thine enemies, knave. Clown You're shallow, madam, in great friends; for the knaves come to do that for me which I am aweary of. He that ears my land spares my team and gives me leave to in the crop; if I be his cuckold, he's my drudge: he that comforts my wife is the cherisher of my flesh and blood; he that cherishes my flesh and blood loves my flesh and blood; he that loves my flesh and blood is my friend: ergo, he that kisses my wife is my friend. If men could be contented to be what they are, there were no fear in marriage; for young Charbon the Puritan and old Poysam the Papist, howsome'er their hearts are severed in religion, their heads are both one; they may jowl horns together, like any deer i' the herd. COUNTESS Wilt thou ever be a foul-mouthed and calumnious knave? Clown A prophet I, madam; and I speak the truth the next way: For I the ballad will repeat, Which men full true shall find; Your marriage comes by destiny, Your cuckoo sings by kind. COUNTESS Get you gone, sir; I'll talk with you more anon. Steward May it please you, madam, that he bid Helen come to you: of her I am to speak. COUNTESS Sirrah, tell my gentlewoman I would speak with her; Helen, I mean. Clown Was this fair face the cause, quoth she, Why the Grecians sacked Troy? Fond done, done fond, Was this King Priam's joy? With that she sighed as she stood, With that she sighed as she stood, And gave this sentence then; Among nine bad if one be good, Among nine bad if one be good, There's yet one good in ten. COUNTESS What, one good in ten? you corrupt the song, sirrah. Clown One good woman in ten, madam; which is a purifying o' the song: would God would serve the world so all the year! we'ld find no fault with the tithe-woman, if I were the parson. One in ten, quoth a'! An we might have a good woman born but one every blazing star, or at an earthquake, 'twould mend the lottery well: a man may draw his heart out, ere a' pluck one. COUNTESS You'll be gone, sir knave, and do as I command you. Clown That man should be at woman's command, and yet no hurt done! Though honesty be no puritan, yet it will do no hurt; it will wear the surplice of humility over the black gown of a big heart. I am going, forsooth: the business is for Helen to come hither. [Exit] COUNTESS Well, now. Steward I know, madam, you love your gentlewoman entirely. COUNTESS Faith, I do: her father bequeathed her to me; and she herself, without other advantage, may lawfully make title to as much love as she finds: there is more owing her than is paid; and more shall be paid her than she'll demand. Steward Madam, I was very late more near her than I think she wished me: alone she was, and did communicate to herself her own words to her own ears; she thought, I dare vow for her, they touched not any stranger sense. Her matter was, she loved your son: Fortune, she said, was no goddess, that had put such difference betwixt their two estates; Love no god, that would not extend his might, only where qualities were level; Dian no queen of virgins, that would suffer her poor knight surprised, without rescue in the first assault or ransom afterward. This she delivered in the most bitter touch of sorrow that e'er I heard virgin exclaim in: which I held my duty speedily to acquaint you withal; sithence, in the loss that may happen, it concerns you something to know it. COUNTESS You have discharged this honestly; keep it to yourself: many likelihoods informed me of this before, which hung so tottering in the balance that I could neither believe nor misdoubt. Pray you, leave me: stall this in your bosom; and I thank you for your honest care: I will speak with you further anon. [Exit Steward] [Enter HELENA] Even so it was with me when I was young: If ever we are nature's, these are ours; this thorn Doth to our rose of youth rightly belong; Our blood to us, this to our blood is born; It is the show and seal of nature's truth, Where love's strong passion is impress'd in youth: By our remembrances of days foregone, Such were our faults, or then we thought them none. Her eye is sick on't: I observe her now. HELENA What is your pleasure, madam? COUNTESS You know, Helen, I am a mother to you. HELENA Mine honourable mistress. COUNTESS Nay, a mother: Why not a mother? When I said 'a mother,' Methought you saw a serpent: what's in 'mother,' That you start at it? I say, I am your mother; And put you in the catalogue of those That were enwombed mine: 'tis often seen Adoption strives with nature and choice breeds A native slip to us from foreign seeds: You ne'er oppress'd me with a mother's groan, Yet I express to you a mother's care: God's mercy, maiden! does it curd thy blood To say I am thy mother? What's the matter, That this distemper'd messenger of wet, The many-colour'd Iris, rounds thine eye? Why? that you are my daughter? HELENA That I am not. COUNTESS I say, I am your mother. HELENA Pardon, madam; The Count Rousillon cannot be my brother: I am from humble, he from honour'd name; No note upon my parents, his all noble: My master, my dear lord he is; and I His servant live, and will his vassal die: He must not be my brother. COUNTESS Nor I your mother? HELENA You are my mother, madam; would you were,-- So that my lord your son were not my brother,-- Indeed my mother! or were you both our mothers, I care no more for than I do for heaven, So I were not his sister. Can't no other, But, I your daughter, he must be my brother? COUNTESS Yes, Helen, you might be my daughter-in-law: God shield you mean it not! daughter and mother So strive upon your pulse. What, pale again? My fear hath catch'd your fondness: now I see The mystery of your loneliness, and find Your salt tears' head: now to all sense 'tis gross You love my son; invention is ashamed, Against the proclamation of thy passion, To say thou dost not: therefore tell me true; But tell me then, 'tis so; for, look thy cheeks Confess it, th' one to th' other; and thine eyes See it so grossly shown in thy behaviors That in their kind they speak it: only sin And hellish obstinacy tie thy tongue, That truth should be suspected. Speak, is't so? If it be so, you have wound a goodly clew; If it be not, forswear't: howe'er, I charge thee, As heaven shall work in me for thine avail, Tell me truly. HELENA Good madam, pardon me! COUNTESS Do you love my son? HELENA Your pardon, noble mistress! COUNTESS Love you my son? HELENA Do not you love him, madam? COUNTESS Go not about; my love hath in't a bond, Whereof the world takes note: come, come, disclose The state of your affection; for your passions Have to the full appeach'd. HELENA Then, I confess, Here on my knee, before high heaven and you, That before you, and next unto high heaven, I love your son. My friends were poor, but honest; so's my love: Be not offended; for it hurts not him That he is loved of me: I follow him not By any token of presumptuous suit; Nor would I have him till I do deserve him; Yet never know how that desert should be. I know I love in vain, strive against hope; Yet in this captious and intenible sieve I still pour in the waters of my love And lack not to lose still: thus, Indian-like, Religious in mine error, I adore The sun, that looks upon his worshipper, But knows of him no more. My dearest madam, Let not your hate encounter with my love For loving where you do: but if yourself, Whose aged honour cites a virtuous youth, Did ever in so true a flame of liking Wish chastely and love dearly, that your Dian Was both herself and love: O, then, give pity To her, whose state is such that cannot choose But lend and give where she is sure to lose; That seeks not to find that her search implies, But riddle-like lives sweetly where she dies! COUNTESS Had you not lately an intent,--speak truly,-- To go to Paris? HELENA Madam, I had. COUNTESS Wherefore? tell true. HELENA I will tell truth; by grace itself I swear. You know my father left me some prescriptions Of rare and proved effects, such as his reading And manifest experience had collected For general sovereignty; and that he will'd me In heedfull'st reservation to bestow them, As notes whose faculties inclusive were More than they were in note: amongst the rest, There is a remedy, approved, set down, To cure the desperate languishings whereof The king is render'd lost. COUNTESS This was your motive For Paris, was it? speak. HELENA My lord your son made me to think of this; Else Paris and the medicine and the king Had from the conversation of my thoughts Haply been absent then. COUNTESS But think you, Helen, If you should tender your supposed aid, He would receive it? he and his physicians Are of a mind; he, that they cannot help him, They, that they cannot help: how shall they credit A poor unlearned virgin, when the schools, Embowell'd of their doctrine, have left off The danger to itself? HELENA There's something in't, More than my father's skill, which was the greatest Of his profession, that his good receipt Shall for my legacy be sanctified By the luckiest stars in heaven: and, would your honour But give me leave to try success, I'ld venture The well-lost life of mine on his grace's cure By such a day and hour. COUNTESS Dost thou believe't? HELENA Ay, madam, knowingly. COUNTESS Why, Helen, thou shalt have my leave and love, Means and attendants and my loving greetings To those of mine in court: I'll stay at home And pray God's blessing into thy attempt: Be gone to-morrow; and be sure of this, What I can help thee to thou shalt not miss. [Exeunt] ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL ACT II SCENE I Paris. The KING's palace. [Flourish of cornets. Enter the KING, attended with divers young Lords taking leave for the Florentine war; BERTRAM, and PAROLLES] KING Farewell, young lords; these warlike principles Do not throw from you: and you, my lords, farewell: Share the advice betwixt you; if both gain, all The gift doth stretch itself as 'tis received, And is enough for both. First Lord 'Tis our hope, sir, After well enter'd soldiers, to return And find your grace in health. KING No, no, it cannot be; and yet my heart Will not confess he owes the malady That doth my life besiege. Farewell, young lords; Whether I live or die, be you the sons Of worthy Frenchmen: let higher Italy,-- Those bated that inherit but the fall Of the last monarchy,--see that you come Not to woo honour, but to wed it; when The bravest questant shrinks, find what you seek, That fame may cry you loud: I say, farewell. Second Lord Health, at your bidding, serve your majesty! KING Those girls of Italy, take heed of them: They say, our French lack language to deny, If they demand: beware of being captives, Before you serve. Both Our hearts receive your warnings. KING Farewell. Come hither to me. [Exit, attended] First Lord O, my sweet lord, that you will stay behind us! PAROLLES 'Tis not his fault, the spark. Second Lord O, 'tis brave wars! PAROLLES Most admirable: I have seen those wars. BERTRAM I am commanded here, and kept a coil with 'Too young' and 'the next year' and ''tis too early.' PAROLLES An thy mind stand to't, boy, steal away bravely. BERTRAM I shall stay here the forehorse to a smock, Creaking my shoes on the plain masonry, Till honour be bought up and no sword worn But one to dance with! By heaven, I'll steal away. First Lord There's honour in the theft. PAROLLES Commit it, count. Second Lord I am your accessary; and so, farewell. BERTRAM I grow to you, and our parting is a tortured body. First Lord Farewell, captain. Second Lord Sweet Monsieur Parolles! PAROLLES Noble heroes, my sword and yours are kin. Good sparks and lustrous, a word, good metals: you shall find in the regiment of the Spinii one Captain Spurio, with his cicatrice, an emblem of war, here on his sinister cheek; it was this very sword entrenched it: say to him, I live; and observe his reports for me. First Lord We shall, noble captain. [Exeunt Lords] PAROLLES Mars dote on you for his novices! what will ye do? BERTRAM Stay: the king. [Re-enter KING. BERTRAM and PAROLLES retire] PAROLLES [To BERTRAM] Use a more spacious ceremony to the noble lords; you have restrained yourself within the list of too cold an adieu: be more expressive to them: for they wear themselves in the cap of the time, there do muster true gait, eat, speak, and move under the influence of the most received star; and though the devil lead the measure, such are to be followed: after them, and take a more dilated farewell. BERTRAM And I will do so. PAROLLES Worthy fellows; and like to prove most sinewy sword-men. [Exeunt BERTRAM and PAROLLES] [Enter LAFEU] LAFEU [Kneeling] Pardon, my lord, for me and for my tidings. KING I'll fee thee to stand up. LAFEU Then here's a man stands, that has brought his pardon. I would you had kneel'd, my lord, to ask me mercy, And that at my bidding you could so stand up. KING I would I had; so I had broke thy pate, And ask'd thee mercy for't. LAFEU Good faith, across: but, my good lord 'tis thus; Will you be cured of your infirmity? KING No. LAFEU O, will you eat no grapes, my royal fox? Yes, but you will my noble grapes, an if My royal fox could reach them: I have seen a medicine That's able to breathe life into a stone, Quicken a rock, and make you dance canary With spritely fire and motion; whose simple touch, Is powerful to araise King Pepin, nay, To give great Charlemain a pen in's hand, And write to her a love-line. KING What 'her' is this? LAFEU Why, Doctor She: my lord, there's one arrived, If you will see her: now, by my faith and honour, If seriously I may convey my thoughts In this my light deliverance, I have spoke With one that, in her sex, her years, profession, Wisdom and constancy, hath amazed me more Than I dare blame my weakness: will you see her For that is her demand, and know her business? That done, laugh well at me. KING Now, good Lafeu, Bring in the admiration; that we with thee May spend our wonder too, or take off thine By wondering how thou took'st it. LAFEU Nay, I'll fit you, And not be all day neither. [Exit] KING Thus he his special nothing ever prologues. [Re-enter LAFEU, with HELENA] LAFEU Nay, come your ways. KING This haste hath wings indeed. LAFEU Nay, come your ways: This is his majesty; say your mind to him: A traitor you do look like; but such traitors His majesty seldom fears: I am Cressid's uncle, That dare leave two together; fare you well. [Exit] KING Now, fair one, does your business follow us? HELENA Ay, my good lord. Gerard de Narbon was my father; In what he did profess, well found. KING I knew him. HELENA The rather will I spare my praises towards him: Knowing him is enough. On's bed of death Many receipts he gave me: chiefly one. Which, as the dearest issue of his practise, And of his old experience the oily darling, He bade me store up, as a triple eye, Safer than mine own two, more dear; I have so; And hearing your high majesty is touch'd With that malignant cause wherein the honour Of my dear father's gift stands chief in power, I come to tender it and my appliance With all bound humbleness. KING We thank you, maiden; But may not be so credulous of cure, When our most learned doctors leave us and The congregated college have concluded That labouring art can never ransom nature From her inaidible estate; I say we must not So stain our judgment, or corrupt our hope, To prostitute our past-cure malady To empirics, or to dissever so Our great self and our credit, to esteem A senseless help when help past sense we deem. HELENA My duty then shall pay me for my pains: I will no more enforce mine office on you. Humbly entreating from your royal thoughts A modest one, to bear me back a again. KING I cannot give thee less, to be call'd grateful: Thou thought'st to help me; and such thanks I give As one near death to those that wish him live: But what at full I know, thou know'st no part, I knowing all my peril, thou no art. HELENA What I can do can do no hurt to try, Since you set up your rest 'gainst remedy. He that of greatest works is finisher Oft does them by the weakest minister: So holy writ in babes hath judgment shown, When judges have been babes; great floods have flown From simple sources, and great seas have dried When miracles have by the greatest been denied. Oft expectation fails and most oft there Where most it promises, and oft it hits Where hope is coldest and despair most fits. KING I must not hear thee; fare thee well, kind maid; Thy pains not used must by thyself be paid: Proffers not took reap thanks for their reward. HELENA Inspired merit so by breath is barr'd: It is not so with Him that all things knows As 'tis with us that square our guess by shows; But most it is presumption in us when The help of heaven we count the act of men. Dear sir, to my endeavours give consent; Of heaven, not me, make an experiment. I am not an impostor that proclaim Myself against the level of mine aim; But know I think and think I know most sure My art is not past power nor you past cure. KING Are thou so confident? within what space Hopest thou my cure? HELENA The great'st grace lending grace Ere twice the horses of the sun shall bring Their fiery torcher his diurnal ring, Ere twice in murk and occidental damp Moist Hesperus hath quench'd his sleepy lamp, Or four and twenty times the pilot's glass Hath told the thievish minutes how they pass, What is infirm from your sound parts shall fly, Health shall live free and sickness freely die. KING Upon thy certainty and confidence What darest thou venture? HELENA Tax of impudence, A strumpet's boldness, a divulged shame Traduced by odious ballads: my maiden's name Sear'd otherwise; nay, worse--if worse--extended With vilest torture let my life be ended. KING Methinks in thee some blessed spirit doth speak His powerful sound within an organ weak: And what impossibility would slay In common sense, sense saves another way. Thy life is dear; for all that life can rate Worth name of life in thee hath estimate, Youth, beauty, wisdom, courage, all That happiness and prime can happy call: Thou this to hazard needs must intimate Skill infinite or monstrous desperate. Sweet practiser, thy physic I will try, That ministers thine own death if I die. HELENA If I break time, or flinch in property Of what I spoke, unpitied let me die, And well deserved: not helping, death's my fee; But, if I help, what do you promise me? KING Make thy demand. HELENA But will you make it even? KING Ay, by my sceptre and my hopes of heaven. HELENA Then shalt thou give me with thy kingly hand What husband in thy power I will command: Exempted be from me the arrogance To choose from forth the royal blood of France, My low and humble name to propagate With any branch or image of thy state; But such a one, thy vassal, whom I know Is free for me to ask, thee to bestow. KING Here is my hand; the premises observed, Thy will by my performance shall be served: So make the choice of thy own time, for I, Thy resolved patient, on thee still rely. More should I question thee, and more I must, Though more to know could not be more to trust, From whence thou camest, how tended on: but rest Unquestion'd welcome and undoubted blest. Give me some help here, ho! If thou proceed As high as word, my deed shall match thy meed. [Flourish. Exeunt] ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL ACT II SCENE II Rousillon. The COUNT's palace. [Enter COUNTESS and Clown] COUNTESS Come on, sir; I shall now put you to the height of your breeding. Clown I will show myself highly fed and lowly taught: I know my business is but to the court. COUNTESS To the court! why, what place make you special, when you put off that with such contempt? But to the court! Clown Truly, madam, if God have lent a man any manners, he may easily put it off at court: he that cannot make a leg, put off's cap, kiss his hand and say nothing, has neither leg, hands, lip, nor cap; and indeed such a fellow, to say precisely, were not for the court; but for me, I have an answer will serve all men. COUNTESS Marry, that's a bountiful answer that fits all questions. Clown It is like a barber's chair that fits all buttocks, the pin-buttock, the quatch-buttock, the brawn buttock, or any buttock. COUNTESS Will your answer serve fit to all questions? Clown As fit as ten groats is for the hand of an attorney, as your French crown for your taffeta punk, as Tib's rush for Tom's forefinger, as a pancake for Shrove Tuesday, a morris for May-day, as the nail to his hole, the cuckold to his horn, as a scolding queen to a wrangling knave, as the nun's lip to the friar's mouth, nay, as the pudding to his skin. COUNTESS Have you, I say, an answer of such fitness for all questions? Clown From below your duke to beneath your constable, it will fit any question. COUNTESS It must be an answer of most monstrous size that must fit all demands. Clown But a trifle neither, in good faith, if the learned should speak truth of it: here it is, and all that belongs to't. Ask me if I am a courtier: it shall do you no harm to learn. COUNTESS To be young again, if we could: I will be a fool in question, hoping to be the wiser by your answer. I pray you, sir, are you a courtier? Clown O Lord, sir! There's a simple putting off. More, more, a hundred of them. COUNTESS Sir, I am a poor friend of yours, that loves you. Clown O Lord, sir! Thick, thick, spare not me. COUNTESS I think, sir, you can eat none of this homely meat. Clown O Lord, sir! Nay, put me to't, I warrant you. COUNTESS You were lately whipped, sir, as I think. Clown O Lord, sir! spare not me. COUNTESS Do you cry, 'O Lord, sir!' at your whipping, and 'spare not me?' Indeed your 'O Lord, sir!' is very sequent to your whipping: you would answer very well to a whipping, if you were but bound to't. Clown I ne'er had worse luck in my life in my 'O Lord, sir!' I see things may serve long, but not serve ever. COUNTESS I play the noble housewife with the time To entertain't so merrily with a fool. Clown O Lord, sir! why, there't serves well again. COUNTESS An end, sir; to your business. Give Helen this, And urge her to a present answer back: Commend me to my kinsmen and my son: This is not much. Clown Not much commendation to them. COUNTESS Not much employment for you: you understand me? Clown Most fruitfully: I am there before my legs. COUNTESS Haste you again. [Exeunt severally] ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL ACT II SCENE III Paris. The KING's palace. [Enter BERTRAM, LAFEU, and PAROLLES] LAFEU They say miracles are past; and we have our philosophical persons, to make modern and familiar, things supernatural and causeless. Hence is it that we make trifles of terrors, ensconcing ourselves into seeming knowledge, when we should submit ourselves to an unknown fear. PAROLLES Why, 'tis the rarest argument of wonder that hath shot out in our latter times. BERTRAM And so 'tis. LAFEU To be relinquish'd of the artists,-- PAROLLES So I say. LAFEU Both of Galen and Paracelsus. PAROLLES So I say. LAFEU Of all the learned and authentic fellows,-- PAROLLES Right; so I say. LAFEU That gave him out incurable,-- PAROLLES Why, there 'tis; so say I too. LAFEU Not to be helped,-- PAROLLES Right; as 'twere, a man assured of a-- LAFEU Uncertain life, and sure death. PAROLLES Just, you say well; so would I have said. LAFEU I may truly say, it is a novelty to the world. PAROLLES It is, indeed: if you will have it in showing, you shall read it in--what do you call there? LAFEU A showing of a heavenly effect in an earthly actor. PAROLLES That's it; I would have said the very same. LAFEU Why, your dolphin is not lustier: 'fore me, I speak in respect-- PAROLLES Nay, 'tis strange, 'tis very strange, that is the brief and the tedious of it; and he's of a most facinerious spirit that will not acknowledge it to be the-- LAFEU Very hand of heaven. PAROLLES Ay, so I say. LAFEU In a most weak-- [pausing] and debile minister, great power, great transcendence: which should, indeed, give us a further use to be made than alone the recovery of the king, as to be-- [pausing] generally thankful. PAROLLES I would have said it; you say well. Here comes the king. [Enter KING, HELENA, and Attendants. LAFEU and PAROLLES retire] LAFEU Lustig, as the Dutchman says: I'll like a maid the better, whilst I have a tooth in my head: why, he's able to lead her a coranto. PAROLLES Mort du vinaigre! is not this Helen? LAFEU 'Fore God, I think so. KING Go, call before me all the lords in court. Sit, my preserver, by thy patient's side; And with this healthful hand, whose banish'd sense Thou hast repeal'd, a second time receive The confirmation of my promised gift, Which but attends thy naming. [Enter three or four Lords] Fair maid, send forth thine eye: this youthful parcel Of noble bachelors stand at my bestowing, O'er whom both sovereign power and father's voice I have to use: thy frank election make; Thou hast power to choose, and they none to forsake. HELENA To each of you one fair and virtuous mistress Fall, when Love please! marry, to each, but one! LAFEU I'ld give bay Curtal and his furniture, My mouth no more were broken than these boys', And writ as little beard. KING Peruse them well: Not one of those but had a noble father. HELENA Gentlemen, Heaven hath through me restored the king to health. All We understand it, and thank heaven for you. HELENA I am a simple maid, and therein wealthiest, That I protest I simply am a maid. Please it your majesty, I have done already: The blushes in my cheeks thus whisper me, 'We blush that thou shouldst choose; but, be refused, Let the white death sit on thy cheek for ever; We'll ne'er come there again.' KING Make choice; and, see, Who shuns thy love shuns all his love in me. HELENA Now, Dian, from thy altar do I fly, And to imperial Love, that god most high, Do my sighs stream. Sir, will you hear my suit? First Lord And grant it. HELENA Thanks, sir; all the rest is mute. LAFEU I had rather be in this choice than throw ames-ace for my life. HELENA The honour, sir, that flames in your fair eyes, Before I speak, too threateningly replies: Love make your fortunes twenty times above Her that so wishes and her humble love! Second Lord No better, if you please. HELENA My wish receive, Which great Love grant! and so, I take my leave. LAFEU Do all they deny her? An they were sons of mine, I'd have them whipped; or I would send them to the Turk, to make eunuchs of. HELENA Be not afraid that I your hand should take; I'll never do you wrong for your own sake: Blessing upon your vows! and in your bed Find fairer fortune, if you ever wed! LAFEU These boys are boys of ice, they'll none have her: sure, they are bastards to the English; the French ne'er got 'em. HELENA You are too young, too happy, and too good, To make yourself a son out of my blood. Fourth Lord Fair one, I think not so. LAFEU There's one grape yet; I am sure thy father drunk wine: but if thou be'st not an ass, I am a youth of fourteen; I have known thee already. HELENA [To BERTRAM] I dare not say I take you; but I give Me and my service, ever whilst I live, Into your guiding power. This is the man. KING Why, then, young Bertram, take her; she's thy wife. BERTRAM My wife, my liege! I shall beseech your highness, In such a business give me leave to use The help of mine own eyes. KING Know'st thou not, Bertram, What she has done for me? BERTRAM Yes, my good lord; But never hope to know why I should marry her. KING Thou know'st she has raised me from my sickly bed. BERTRAM But follows it, my lord, to bring me down Must answer for your raising? I know her well: She had her breeding at my father's charge. A poor physician's daughter my wife! Disdain Rather corrupt me ever! KING 'Tis only title thou disdain'st in her, the which I can build up. Strange is it that our bloods, Of colour, weight, and heat, pour'd all together, Would quite confound distinction, yet stand off In differences so mighty. If she be All that is virtuous, save what thou dislikest, A poor physician's daughter, thou dislikest Of virtue for the name: but do not so: From lowest place when virtuous things proceed, The place is dignified by the doer's deed: Where great additions swell's, and virtue none, It is a dropsied honour. Good alone Is good without a name. Vileness is so: The property by what it is should go, Not by the title. She is young, wise, fair; In these to nature she's immediate heir, And these breed honour: that is honour's scorn, Which challenges itself as honour's born And is not like the sire: honours thrive, When rather from our acts we them derive Than our foregoers: the mere word's a slave Debosh'd on every tomb, on every grave A lying trophy, and as oft is dumb Where dust and damn'd oblivion is the tomb Of honour'd bones indeed. What should be said? If thou canst like this creature as a maid, I can create the rest: virtue and she Is her own dower; honour and wealth from me. BERTRAM I cannot love her, nor will strive to do't. KING Thou wrong'st thyself, if thou shouldst strive to choose. HELENA That you are well restored, my lord, I'm glad: Let the rest go. KING My honour's at the stake; which to defeat, I must produce my power. Here, take her hand, Proud scornful boy, unworthy this good gift; That dost in vile misprision shackle up My love and her desert; that canst not dream, We, poising us in her defective scale, Shall weigh thee to the beam; that wilt not know, It is in us to plant thine honour where We please to have it grow. Cheque thy contempt: Obey our will, which travails in thy good: Believe not thy disdain, but presently Do thine own fortunes that obedient right Which both thy duty owes and our power claims; Or I will throw thee from my care for ever Into the staggers and the careless lapse Of youth and ignorance; both my revenge and hate Loosing upon thee, in the name of justice, Without all terms of pity. Speak; thine answer. BERTRAM Pardon, my gracious lord; for I submit My fancy to your eyes: when I consider What great creation and what dole of honour Flies where you bid it, I find that she, which late Was in my nobler thoughts most base, is now The praised of the king; who, so ennobled, Is as 'twere born so. KING Take her by the hand, And tell her she is thine: to whom I promise A counterpoise, if not to thy estate A balance more replete. BERTRAM I take her hand. KING Good fortune and the favour of the king Smile upon this contract; whose ceremony Shall seem expedient on the now-born brief, And be perform'd to-night: the solemn feast Shall more attend upon the coming space, Expecting absent friends. As thou lovest her, Thy love's to me religious; else, does err. [Exeunt all but LAFEU and PAROLLES] LAFEU [Advancing] Do you hear, monsieur? a word with you. PAROLLES Your pleasure, sir? LAFEU Your lord and master did well to make his recantation. PAROLLES Recantation! My lord! my master! LAFEU Ay; is it not a language I speak? PAROLLES A most harsh one, and not to be understood without bloody succeeding. My master! LAFEU Are you companion to the Count Rousillon? PAROLLES To any count, to all counts, to what is man. LAFEU To what is count's man: count's master is of another style. PAROLLES You are too old, sir; let it satisfy you, you are too old. LAFEU I must tell thee, sirrah, I write man; to which title age cannot bring thee. PAROLLES What I dare too well do, I dare not do. LAFEU I did think thee, for two ordinaries, to be a pretty wise fellow; thou didst make tolerable vent of thy travel; it might pass: yet the scarfs and the bannerets about thee did manifoldly dissuade me from believing thee a vessel of too great a burthen. I have now found thee; when I lose thee again, I care not: yet art thou good for nothing but taking up; and that thou't scarce worth. PAROLLES Hadst thou not the privilege of antiquity upon thee,-- LAFEU Do not plunge thyself too far in anger, lest thou hasten thy trial; which if--Lord have mercy on thee for a hen! So, my good window of lattice, fare thee well: thy casement I need not open, for I look through thee. Give me thy hand. PAROLLES My lord, you give me most egregious indignity. LAFEU Ay, with all my heart; and thou art worthy of it. PAROLLES I have not, my lord, deserved it. LAFEU Yes, good faith, every dram of it; and I will not bate thee a scruple. PAROLLES Well, I shall be wiser. LAFEU Even as soon as thou canst, for thou hast to pull at a smack o' the contrary. If ever thou be'st bound in thy scarf and beaten, thou shalt find what it is to be proud of thy bondage. I have a desire to hold my acquaintance with thee, or rather my knowledge, that I may say in the default, he is a man I know. PAROLLES My lord, you do me most insupportable vexation. LAFEU I would it were hell-pains for thy sake, and my poor doing eternal: for doing I am past: as I will by thee, in what motion age will give me leave. [Exit] PAROLLES Well, thou hast a son shall take this disgrace off me; scurvy, old, filthy, scurvy lord! Well, I must be patient; there is no fettering of authority. I'll beat him, by my life, if I can meet him with any convenience, an he were double and double a lord. I'll have no more pity of his age than I would of--I'll beat him, an if I could but meet him again. [Re-enter LAFEU] LAFEU Sirrah, your lord and master's married; there's news for you: you have a new mistress. PAROLLES I most unfeignedly beseech your lordship to make some reservation of your wrongs: he is my good lord: whom I serve above is my master. LAFEU Who? God? PAROLLES Ay, sir. LAFEU The devil it is that's thy master. Why dost thou garter up thy arms o' this fashion? dost make hose of sleeves? do other servants so? Thou wert best set thy lower part where thy nose stands. By mine honour, if I were but two hours younger, I'ld beat thee: methinks, thou art a general offence, and every man should beat thee: I think thou wast created for men to breathe themselves upon thee. PAROLLES This is hard and undeserved measure, my lord. LAFEU Go to, sir; you were beaten in Italy for picking a kernel out of a pomegranate; you are a vagabond and no true traveller: you are more saucy with lords and honourable personages than the commission of your birth and virtue gives you heraldry. You are not worth another word, else I'ld call you knave. I leave you. [Exit] PAROLLES Good, very good; it is so then: good, very good; let it be concealed awhile. [Re-enter BERTRAM] BERTRAM Undone, and forfeited to cares for ever! PAROLLES What's the matter, sweet-heart? BERTRAM Although before the solemn priest I have sworn, I will not bed her. PAROLLES What, what, sweet-heart? BERTRAM O my Parolles, they have married me! I'll to the Tuscan wars, and never bed her. PAROLLES France is a dog-hole, and it no more merits The tread of a man's foot: to the wars! BERTRAM There's letters from my mother: what the import is, I know not yet. PAROLLES Ay, that would be known. To the wars, my boy, to the wars! He wears his honour in a box unseen, That hugs his kicky-wicky here at home, Spending his manly marrow in her arms, Which should sustain the bound and high curvet Of Mars's fiery steed. To other regions France is a stable; we that dwell in't jades; Therefore, to the war! BERTRAM It shall be so: I'll send her to my house, Acquaint my mother with my hate to her, And wherefore I am fled; write to the king That which I durst not speak; his present gift Shall furnish me to those Italian fields, Where noble fellows strike: war is no strife To the dark house and the detested wife. PAROLLES Will this capriccio hold in thee? art sure? BERTRAM Go with me to my chamber, and advise me. I'll send her straight away: to-morrow I'll to the wars, she to her single sorrow. PAROLLES Why, these balls bound; there's noise in it. 'Tis hard: A young man married is a man that's marr'd: Therefore away, and leave her bravely; go: The king has done you wrong: but, hush, 'tis so. [Exeunt] ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL ACT II SCENE IV Paris. The KING's palace. [Enter HELENA and Clown] HELENA My mother greets me kindly; is she well? Clown She is not well; but yet she has her health: she's very merry; but yet she is not well: but thanks be given, she's very well and wants nothing i', the world; but yet she is not well. HELENA If she be very well, what does she ail, that she's not very well? Clown Truly, she's very well indeed, but for two things. HELENA What two things? Clown One, that she's not in heaven, whither God send her quickly! the other that she's in earth, from whence God send her quickly! [Enter PAROLLES] PAROLLES Bless you, my fortunate lady! HELENA I hope, sir, I have your good will to have mine own good fortunes. PAROLLES You had my prayers to lead them on; and to keep them on, have them still. O, my knave, how does my old lady? Clown So that you had her wrinkles and I her money, I would she did as you say. PAROLLES Why, I say nothing. Clown Marry, you are the wiser man; for many a man's tongue shakes out his master's undoing: to say nothing, to do nothing, to know nothing, and to have nothing, is to be a great part of your title; which is within a very little of nothing. PAROLLES Away! thou'rt a knave. Clown You should have said, sir, before a knave thou'rt a knave; that's, before me thou'rt a knave: this had been truth, sir. PAROLLES Go to, thou art a witty fool; I have found thee. Clown Did you find me in yourself, sir? or were you taught to find me? The search, sir, was profitable; and much fool may you find in you, even to the world's pleasure and the increase of laughter. PAROLLES A good knave, i' faith, and well fed. Madam, my lord will go away to-night; A very serious business calls on him. The great prerogative and rite of love, Which, as your due, time claims, he does acknowledge; But puts it off to a compell'd restraint; Whose want, and whose delay, is strew'd with sweets, Which they distil now in the curbed time, To make the coming hour o'erflow with joy And pleasure drown the brim. HELENA What's his will else? PAROLLES That you will take your instant leave o' the king And make this haste as your own good proceeding, Strengthen'd with what apology you think May make it probable need. HELENA What more commands he? PAROLLES That, having this obtain'd, you presently Attend his further pleasure. HELENA In every thing I wait upon his will. PAROLLES I shall report it so. HELENA I pray you. [Exit PAROLLES] Come, sirrah. [Exeunt] ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL ACT II SCENE V Paris. The KING's palace. [Enter LAFEU and BERTRAM] LAFEU But I hope your lordship thinks not him a soldier. BERTRAM Yes, my lord, and of very valiant approof. LAFEU You have it from his own deliverance. BERTRAM And by other warranted testimony. LAFEU Then my dial goes not true: I took this lark for a bunting. BERTRAM I do assure you, my lord, he is very great in knowledge and accordingly valiant. LAFEU I have then sinned against his experience and transgressed against his valour; and my state that way is dangerous, since I cannot yet find in my heart to repent. Here he comes: I pray you, make us friends; I will pursue the amity. [Enter PAROLLES] PAROLLES [To BERTRAM] These things shall be done, sir. LAFEU Pray you, sir, who's his tailor? PAROLLES Sir? LAFEU O, I know him well, I, sir; he, sir, 's a good workman, a very good tailor. BERTRAM [Aside to PAROLLES] Is she gone to the king? PAROLLES She is. BERTRAM Will she away to-night? PAROLLES As you'll have her. BERTRAM I have writ my letters, casketed my treasure, Given order for our horses; and to-night, When I should take possession of the bride, End ere I do begin. LAFEU A good traveller is something at the latter end of a dinner; but one that lies three thirds and uses a known truth to pass a thousand nothings with, should be once heard and thrice beaten. God save you, captain. BERTRAM Is there any unkindness between my lord and you, monsieur? PAROLLES I know not how I have deserved to run into my lord's displeasure. LAFEU You have made shift to run into 't, boots and spurs and all, like him that leaped into the custard; and out of it you'll run again, rather than suffer question for your residence. BERTRAM It may be you have mistaken him, my lord. LAFEU And shall do so ever, though I took him at 's prayers. Fare you well, my lord; and believe this of me, there can be no kernel in this light nut; the soul of this man is his clothes. Trust him not in matter of heavy consequence; I have kept of them tame, and know their natures. Farewell, monsieur: I have spoken better of you than you have or will to deserve at my hand; but we must do good against evil. [Exit] PAROLLES An idle lord. I swear. BERTRAM I think so. PAROLLES Why, do you not know him? BERTRAM Yes, I do know him well, and common speech Gives him a worthy pass. Here comes my clog. [Enter HELENA] HELENA I have, sir, as I was commanded from you, Spoke with the king and have procured his leave For present parting; only he desires Some private speech with you. BERTRAM I shall obey his will. You must not marvel, Helen, at my course, Which holds not colour with the time, nor does The ministration and required office On my particular. Prepared I was not For such a business; therefore am I found So much unsettled: this drives me to entreat you That presently you take our way for home; And rather muse than ask why I entreat you, For my respects are better than they seem And my appointments have in them a need Greater than shows itself at the first view To you that know them not. This to my mother: [Giving a letter] 'Twill be two days ere I shall see you, so I leave you to your wisdom. HELENA Sir, I can nothing say, But that I am your most obedient servant. BERTRAM Come, come, no more of that. HELENA And ever shall With true observance seek to eke out that Wherein toward me my homely stars have fail'd To equal my great fortune. BERTRAM Let that go: My haste is very great: farewell; hie home. HELENA Pray, sir, your pardon. BERTRAM Well, what would you say? HELENA I am not worthy of the wealth I owe, Nor dare I say 'tis mine, and yet it is; But, like a timorous thief, most fain would steal What law does vouch mine own. BERTRAM What would you have? HELENA Something; and scarce so much: nothing, indeed. I would not tell you what I would, my lord: Faith yes; Strangers and foes do sunder, and not kiss. BERTRAM I pray you, stay not, but in haste to horse. HELENA I shall not break your bidding, good my lord. BERTRAM Where are my other men, monsieur? Farewell. [Exit HELENA] Go thou toward home; where I will never come Whilst I can shake my sword or hear the drum. Away, and for our flight. PAROLLES Bravely, coragio! [Exeunt] ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL ACT III SCENE I Florence. The DUKE's palace. [Flourish. Enter the DUKE of Florence attended; the two Frenchmen, with a troop of soldiers. DUKE So that from point to point now have you heard The fundamental reasons of this war, Whose great decision hath much blood let forth And more thirsts after. First Lord Holy seems the quarrel Upon your grace's part; black and fearful On the opposer. DUKE Therefore we marvel much our cousin France Would in so just a business shut his bosom Against our borrowing prayers. Second Lord Good my lord, The reasons of our state I cannot yield, But like a common and an outward man, That the great figure of a council frames By self-unable motion: therefore dare not Say what I think of it, since I have found Myself in my incertain grounds to fail As often as I guess'd. DUKE Be it his pleasure. First Lord But I am sure the younger of our nature, That surfeit on their ease, will day by day Come here for physic. DUKE Welcome shall they be; And all the honours that can fly from us Shall on them settle. You know your places well; When better fall, for your avails they fell: To-morrow to the field. [Flourish. Exeunt] ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL ACT III SCENE II Rousillon. The COUNT's palace. [Enter COUNTESS and Clown] COUNTESS It hath happened all as I would have had it, save that he comes not along with her. Clown By my troth, I take my young lord to be a very melancholy man. COUNTESS By what observance, I pray you? Clown Why, he will look upon his boot and sing; mend the ruff and sing; ask questions and sing; pick his teeth and sing. I know a man that had this trick of melancholy sold a goodly manor for a song. COUNTESS Let me see what he writes, and when he means to come. [Opening a letter] Clown I have no mind to Isbel since I was at court: our old ling and our Isbels o' the country are nothing like your old ling and your Isbels o' the court: the brains of my Cupid's knocked out, and I begin to love, as an old man loves money, with no stomach. COUNTESS What have we here? Clown E'en that you have there. [Exit] COUNTESS [Reads] I have sent you a daughter-in-law: she hath recovered the king, and undone me. I have wedded her, not bedded her; and sworn to make the 'not' eternal. You shall hear I am run away: know it before the report come. If there be breadth enough in the world, I will hold a long distance. My duty to you. Your unfortunate son, BERTRAM. This is not well, rash and unbridled boy. To fly the favours of so good a king; To pluck his indignation on thy head By the misprising of a maid too virtuous For the contempt of empire. [Re-enter Clown] Clown O madam, yonder is heavy news within between two soldiers and my young lady! COUNTESS What is the matter? Clown Nay, there is some comfort in the news, some comfort; your son will not be killed so soon as I thought he would. COUNTESS Why should he be killed? Clown So say I, madam, if he run away, as I hear he does: the danger is in standing to't; that's the loss of men, though it be the getting of children. Here they come will tell you more: for my part, I only hear your son was run away. [Exit] [Enter HELENA, and two Gentlemen] First Gentleman Save you, good madam. HELENA Madam, my lord is gone, for ever gone. Second Gentleman Do not say so. COUNTESS Think upon patience. Pray you, gentlemen, I have felt so many quirks of joy and grief, That the first face of neither, on the start, Can woman me unto't: where is my son, I pray you? Second Gentleman Madam, he's gone to serve the duke of Florence: We met him thitherward; for thence we came, And, after some dispatch in hand at court, Thither we bend again. HELENA Look on his letter, madam; here's my passport. [Reads] When thou canst get the ring upon my finger which never shall come off, and show me a child begotten of thy body that I am father to, then call me husband: but in such a 'then' I write a 'never.' This is a dreadful sentence. COUNTESS Brought you this letter, gentlemen? First Gentleman Ay, madam; And for the contents' sake are sorry for our pain. COUNTESS I prithee, lady, have a better cheer; If thou engrossest all the griefs are thine, Thou robb'st me of a moiety: he was my son; But I do wash his name out of my blood, And thou art all my child. Towards Florence is he? Second Gentleman Ay, madam. COUNTESS And to be a soldier? Second Gentleman Such is his noble purpose; and believe 't, The duke will lay upon him all the honour That good convenience claims. COUNTESS Return you thither? First Gentleman Ay, madam, with the swiftest wing of speed. HELENA [Reads] Till I have no wife I have nothing in France. 'Tis bitter. COUNTESS Find you that there? HELENA Ay, madam. First Gentleman 'Tis but the boldness of his hand, haply, which his heart was not consenting to. COUNTESS Nothing in France, until he have no wife! There's nothing here that is too good for him But only she; and she deserves a lord That twenty such rude boys might tend upon And call her hourly mistress. Who was with him? First Gentleman A servant only, and a gentleman Which I have sometime known. COUNTESS Parolles, was it not? First Gentleman Ay, my good lady, he. COUNTESS A very tainted fellow, and full of wickedness. My son corrupts a well-derived nature With his inducement. First Gentleman Indeed, good lady, The fellow has a deal of that too much, Which holds him much to have. COUNTESS You're welcome, gentlemen. I will entreat you, when you see my son, To tell him that his sword can never win The honour that he loses: more I'll entreat you Written to bear along. Second Gentleman We serve you, madam, In that and all your worthiest affairs. COUNTESS Not so, but as we change our courtesies. Will you draw near! [Exeunt COUNTESS and Gentlemen] HELENA 'Till I have no wife, I have nothing in France.' Nothing in France, until he has no wife! Thou shalt have none, Rousillon, none in France; Then hast thou all again. Poor lord! is't I That chase thee from thy country and expose Those tender limbs of thine to the event Of the none-sparing war? and is it I That drive thee from the sportive court, where thou Wast shot at with fair eyes, to be the mark Of smoky muskets? O you leaden messengers, That ride upon the violent speed of fire, Fly with false aim; move the still-peering air, That sings with piercing; do not touch my lord. Whoever shoots at him, I set him there; Whoever charges on his forward breast, I am the caitiff that do hold him to't; And, though I kill him not, I am the cause His death was so effected: better 'twere I met the ravin lion when he roar'd With sharp constraint of hunger; better 'twere That all the miseries which nature owes Were mine at once. No, come thou home, Rousillon, Whence honour but of danger wins a scar, As oft it loses all: I will be gone; My being here it is that holds thee hence: Shall I stay here to do't? no, no, although The air of paradise did fan the house And angels officed all: I will be gone, That pitiful rumour may report my flight, To consolate thine ear. Come, night; end, day! For with the dark, poor thief, I'll steal away. [Exit] ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL ACT III SCENE III Florence. Before the DUKE's palace. [Flourish. Enter the DUKE of Florence, BERTRAM, PAROLLES, Soldiers, Drum, and Trumpets] DUKE The general of our horse thou art; and we, Great in our hope, lay our best love and credence Upon thy promising fortune. BERTRAM Sir, it is A charge too heavy for my strength, but yet We'll strive to bear it for your worthy sake To the extreme edge of hazard. DUKE Then go thou forth; And fortune play upon thy prosperous helm, As thy auspicious mistress! BERTRAM This very day, Great Mars, I put myself into thy file: Make me but like my thoughts, and I shall prove A lover of thy drum, hater of love. [Exeunt] ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL ACT III SCENE IV Rousillon. The COUNT's palace. [Enter COUNTESS and Steward] COUNTESS Alas! and would you take the letter of her? Might you not know she would do as she has done, By sending me a letter? Read it again. Steward [Reads] I am Saint Jaques' pilgrim, thither gone: Ambitious love hath so in me offended, That barefoot plod I the cold ground upon, With sainted vow my faults to have amended. Write, write, that from the bloody course of war My dearest master, your dear son, may hie: Bless him at home in peace, whilst I from far His name with zealous fervor sanctify: His taken labours bid him me forgive; I, his despiteful Juno, sent him forth From courtly friends, with camping foes to live, Where death and danger dogs the heels of worth: He is too good and fair for death and me: Whom I myself embrace, to set him free. COUNTESS Ah, what sharp stings are in her mildest words! Rinaldo, you did never lack advice so much, As letting her pass so: had I spoke with her, I could have well diverted her intents, Which thus she hath prevented. Steward Pardon me, madam: If I had given you this at over-night, She might have been o'erta'en; and yet she writes, Pursuit would be but vain. COUNTESS What angel shall Bless this unworthy husband? he cannot thrive, Unless her prayers, whom heaven delights to hear And loves to grant, reprieve him from the wrath Of greatest justice. Write, write, Rinaldo, To this unworthy husband of his wife; Let every word weigh heavy of her worth That he does weigh too light: my greatest grief. Though little he do feel it, set down sharply. Dispatch the most convenient messenger: When haply he shall hear that she is gone, He will return; and hope I may that she, Hearing so much, will speed her foot again, Led hither by pure love: which of them both Is dearest to me. I have no skill in sense To make distinction: provide this messenger: My heart is heavy and mine age is weak; Grief would have tears, and sorrow bids me speak. [Exeunt] ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL ACT III SCENE V Florence. Without the walls. A tucket afar off. [Enter an old Widow of Florence, DIANA, VIOLENTA, and MARIANA, with other Citizens] Widow Nay, come; for if they do approach the city, we shall lose all the sight. DIANA They say the French count has done most honourable service. Widow It is reported that he has taken their greatest commander; and that with his own hand he slew the duke's brother. [Tucket] We have lost our labour; they are gone a contrary way: hark! you may know by their trumpets. MARIANA Come, let's return again, and suffice ourselves with the report of it. Well, Diana, take heed of this French earl: the honour of a maid is her name; and no legacy is so rich as honesty. Widow I have told my neighbour how you have been solicited by a gentleman his companion. MARIANA I know that knave; hang him! one Parolles: a filthy officer he is in those suggestions for the young earl. Beware of them, Diana; their promises, enticements, oaths, tokens, and all these engines of lust, are not the things they go under: many a maid hath been seduced by them; and the misery is, example, that so terrible shows in the wreck of maidenhood, cannot for all that dissuade succession, but that they are limed with the twigs that threaten them. I hope I need not to advise you further; but I hope your own grace will keep you where you are, though there were no further danger known but the modesty which is so lost. DIANA You shall not need to fear me. Widow I hope so. [Enter HELENA, disguised like a Pilgrim] Look, here comes a pilgrim: I know she will lie at my house; thither they send one another: I'll question her. God save you, pilgrim! whither are you bound? HELENA To Saint Jaques le Grand. Where do the palmers lodge, I do beseech you? Widow At the Saint Francis here beside the port. HELENA Is this the way? Widow Ay, marry, is't. [A march afar] Hark you! they come this way. If you will tarry, holy pilgrim, But till the troops come by, I will conduct you where you shall be lodged; The rather, for I think I know your hostess As ample as myself. HELENA Is it yourself? Widow If you shall please so, pilgrim. HELENA I thank you, and will stay upon your leisure. Widow You came, I think, from France? HELENA I did so. Widow Here you shall see a countryman of yours That has done worthy service. HELENA His name, I pray you. DIANA The Count Rousillon: know you such a one? HELENA But by the ear, that hears most nobly of him: His face I know not. DIANA Whatsome'er he is, He's bravely taken here. He stole from France, As 'tis reported, for the king had married him Against his liking: think you it is so? HELENA Ay, surely, mere the truth: I know his lady. DIANA There is a gentleman that serves the count Reports but coarsely of her. HELENA What's his name? DIANA Monsieur Parolles. HELENA O, I believe with him, In argument of praise, or to the worth Of the great count himself, she is too mean To have her name repeated: all her deserving Is a reserved honesty, and that I have not heard examined. DIANA Alas, poor lady! 'Tis a hard bondage to become the wife Of a detesting lord. Widow I warrant, good creature, wheresoe'er she is, Her heart weighs sadly: this young maid might do her A shrewd turn, if she pleased. HELENA How do you mean? May be the amorous count solicits her In the unlawful purpose. Widow He does indeed; And brokes with all that can in such a suit Corrupt the tender honour of a maid: But she is arm'd for him and keeps her guard In honestest defence. MARIANA The gods forbid else! Widow So, now they come: [Drum and Colours] [Enter BERTRAM, PAROLLES, and the whole army] That is Antonio, the duke's eldest son; That, Escalus. HELENA Which is the Frenchman? DIANA He; That with the plume: 'tis a most gallant fellow. I would he loved his wife: if he were honester He were much goodlier: is't not a handsome gentleman? HELENA I like him well. DIANA 'Tis pity he is not honest: yond's that same knave That leads him to these places: were I his lady, I would Poison that vile rascal. HELENA Which is he? DIANA That jack-an-apes with scarfs: why is he melancholy? HELENA Perchance he's hurt i' the battle. PAROLLES Lose our drum! well. MARIANA He's shrewdly vexed at something: look, he has spied us. Widow Marry, hang you! MARIANA And your courtesy, for a ring-carrier! [Exeunt BERTRAM, PAROLLES, and army] Widow The troop is past. Come, pilgrim, I will bring you Where you shall host: of enjoin'd penitents There's four or five, to great Saint Jaques bound, Already at my house. HELENA I humbly thank you: Please it this matron and this gentle maid To eat with us to-night, the charge and thanking Shall be for me; and, to requite you further, I will bestow some precepts of this virgin Worthy the note. BOTH We'll take your offer kindly. [Exeunt] ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL ACT III SCENE VI Camp before Florence. [Enter BERTRAM and the two French Lords] Second Lord Nay, good my lord, put him to't; let him have his way. First Lord If your lordship find him not a hilding, hold me no more in your respect. Second Lord On my life, my lord, a bubble. BERTRAM Do you think I am so far deceived in him? Second Lord Believe it, my lord, in mine own direct knowledge, without any malice, but to speak of him as my kinsman, he's a most notable coward, an infinite and endless liar, an hourly promise-breaker, the owner of no one good quality worthy your lordship's entertainment. First Lord It were fit you knew him; lest, reposing too far in his virtue, which he hath not, he might at some great and trusty business in a main danger fail you. BERTRAM I would I knew in what particular action to try him. First Lord None better than to let him fetch off his drum, which you hear him so confidently undertake to do. Second Lord I, with a troop of Florentines, will suddenly surprise him; such I will have, whom I am sure he knows not from the enemy: we will bind and hoodwink him so, that he shall suppose no other but that he is carried into the leaguer of the adversaries, when we bring him to our own tents. Be but your lordship present at his examination: if he do not, for the promise of his life and in the highest compulsion of base fear, offer to betray you and deliver all the intelligence in his power against you, and that with the divine forfeit of his soul upon oath, never trust my judgment in any thing. First Lord O, for the love of laughter, let him fetch his drum; he says he has a stratagem for't: when your lordship sees the bottom of his success in't, and to what metal this counterfeit lump of ore will be melted, if you give him not John Drum's entertainment, your inclining cannot be removed. Here he comes. [Enter PAROLLES] Second Lord [Aside to BERTRAM] O, for the love of laughter, hinder not the honour of his design: let him fetch off his drum in any hand. BERTRAM How now, monsieur! this drum sticks sorely in your disposition. First Lord A pox on't, let it go; 'tis but a drum. PAROLLES 'But a drum'! is't 'but a drum'? A drum so lost! There was excellent command,--to charge in with our horse upon our own wings, and to rend our own soldiers! First Lord That was not to be blamed in the command of the service: it was a disaster of war that Caesar himself could not have prevented, if he had been there to command. BERTRAM Well, we cannot greatly condemn our success: some dishonour we had in the loss of that drum; but it is not to be recovered. PAROLLES It might have been recovered. BERTRAM It might; but it is not now. PAROLLES It is to be recovered: but that the merit of service is seldom attributed to the true and exact performer, I would have that drum or another, or 'hic jacet.' BERTRAM Why, if you have a stomach, to't, monsieur: if you think your mystery in stratagem can bring this instrument of honour again into his native quarter, be magnanimous in the enterprise and go on; I will grace the attempt for a worthy exploit: if you speed well in it, the duke shall both speak of it. and extend to you what further becomes his greatness, even to the utmost syllable of your worthiness. PAROLLES By the hand of a soldier, I will undertake it. BERTRAM But you must not now slumber in it. PAROLLES I'll about it this evening: and I will presently pen down my dilemmas, encourage myself in my certainty, put myself into my mortal preparation; and by midnight look to hear further from me. BERTRAM May I be bold to acquaint his grace you are gone about it? PAROLLES I know not what the success will be, my lord; but the attempt I vow. BERTRAM I know thou'rt valiant; and, to the possibility of thy soldiership, will subscribe for thee. Farewell. PAROLLES I love not many words. [Exit] Second Lord No more than a fish loves water. Is not this a strange fellow, my lord, that so confidently seems to undertake this business, which he knows is not to be done; damns himself to do and dares better be damned than to do't? First Lord You do not know him, my lord, as we do: certain it is that he will steal himself into a man's favour and for a week escape a great deal of discoveries; but when you find him out, you have him ever after. BERTRAM Why, do you think he will make no deed at all of this that so seriously he does address himself unto? Second Lord None in the world; but return with an invention and clap upon you two or three probable lies: but we have almost embossed him; you shall see his fall to-night; for indeed he is not for your lordship's respect. First Lord We'll make you some sport with the fox ere we case him. He was first smoked by the old lord Lafeu: when his disguise and he is parted, tell me what a sprat you shall find him; which you shall see this very night. Second Lord I must go look my twigs: he shall be caught. BERTRAM Your brother he shall go along with me. Second Lord As't please your lordship: I'll leave you. [Exit] BERTRAM Now will I lead you to the house, and show you The lass I spoke of. First Lord But you say she's honest. BERTRAM That's all the fault: I spoke with her but once And found her wondrous cold; but I sent to her, By this same coxcomb that we have i' the wind, Tokens and letters which she did re-send; And this is all I have done. She's a fair creature: Will you go see her? First Lord With all my heart, my lord. [Exeunt] ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL ACT III SCENE VII Florence. The Widow's house. [Enter HELENA and Widow] HELENA If you misdoubt me that I am not she, I know not how I shall assure you further, But I shall lose the grounds I work upon. Widow Though my estate be fallen, I was well born, Nothing acquainted with these businesses; And would not put my reputation now In any staining act. HELENA Nor would I wish you. First, give me trust, the count he is my husband, And what to your sworn counsel I have spoken Is so from word to word; and then you cannot, By the good aid that I of you shall borrow, Err in bestowing it. Widow I should believe you: For you have show'd me that which well approves You're great in fortune. HELENA Take this purse of gold, And let me buy your friendly help thus far, Which I will over-pay and pay again When I have found it. The count he wooes your daughter, Lays down his wanton siege before her beauty, Resolved to carry her: let her in fine consent, As we'll direct her how 'tis best to bear it. Now his important blood will nought deny That she'll demand: a ring the county wears, That downward hath succeeded in his house From son to son, some four or five descents Since the first father wore it: this ring he holds In most rich choice; yet in his idle fire, To buy his will, it would not seem too dear, Howe'er repented after. Widow Now I see The bottom of your purpose. HELENA You see it lawful, then: it is no more, But that your daughter, ere she seems as won, Desires this ring; appoints him an encounter; In fine, delivers me to fill the time, Herself most chastely absent: after this, To marry her, I'll add three thousand crowns To what is passed already. Widow I have yielded: Instruct my daughter how she shall persever, That time and place with this deceit so lawful May prove coherent. Every night he comes With musics of all sorts and songs composed To her unworthiness: it nothing steads us To chide him from our eaves; for he persists As if his life lay on't. HELENA Why then to-night Let us assay our plot; which, if it speed, Is wicked meaning in a lawful deed And lawful meaning in a lawful act, Where both not sin, and yet a sinful fact: But let's about it. [Exeunt] ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL ACT IV SCENE I Without the Florentine camp. [Enter Second French Lord, with five or six other Soldiers in ambush] Second Lord He can come no other way but by this hedge-corner. When you sally upon him, speak what terrible language you will: though you understand it not yourselves, no matter; for we must not seem to understand him, unless some one among us whom we must produce for an interpreter. First Soldier Good captain, let me be the interpreter. Second Lord Art not acquainted with him? knows he not thy voice? First Soldier No, sir, I warrant you. Second Lord But what linsey-woolsey hast thou to speak to us again? First Soldier E'en such as you speak to me. Second Lord He must think us some band of strangers i' the adversary's entertainment. Now he hath a smack of all neighbouring languages; therefore we must every one be a man of his own fancy, not to know what we speak one to another; so we seem to know, is to know straight our purpose: choughs' language, gabble enough, and good enough. As for you, interpreter, you must seem very politic. But couch, ho! here he comes, to beguile two hours in a sleep, and then to return and swear the lies he forges. [Enter PAROLLES] PAROLLES Ten o'clock: within these three hours 'twill be time enough to go home. What shall I say I have done? It must be a very plausive invention that carries it: they begin to smoke me; and disgraces have of late knocked too often at my door. I find my tongue is too foolhardy; but my heart hath the fear of Mars before it and of his creatures, not daring the reports of my tongue. Second Lord This is the first truth that e'er thine own tongue was guilty of. PAROLLES What the devil should move me to undertake the recovery of this drum, being not ignorant of the impossibility, and knowing I had no such purpose? I must give myself some hurts, and say I got them in exploit: yet slight ones will not carry it; they will say, 'Came you off with so little?' and great ones I dare not give. Wherefore, what's the instance? Tongue, I must put you into a butter-woman's mouth and buy myself another of Bajazet's mule, if you prattle me into these perils. Second Lord Is it possible he should know what he is, and be that he is? PAROLLES I would the cutting of my garments would serve the turn, or the breaking of my Spanish sword. Second Lord We cannot afford you so. PAROLLES Or the baring of my beard; and to say it was in stratagem. Second Lord 'Twould not do. PAROLLES Or to drown my clothes, and say I was stripped. Second Lord Hardly serve. PAROLLES Though I swore I leaped from the window of the citadel. Second Lord How deep? PAROLLES Thirty fathom. Second Lord Three great oaths would scarce make that be believed. PAROLLES I would I had any drum of the enemy's: I would swear I recovered it. Second Lord You shall hear one anon. PAROLLES A drum now of the enemy's,-- [Alarum within] Second Lord Throca movousus, cargo, cargo, cargo. All Cargo, cargo, cargo, villiando par corbo, cargo. PAROLLES O, ransom, ransom! do not hide mine eyes. [They seize and blindfold him] First Soldier Boskos thromuldo boskos. PAROLLES I know you are the Muskos' regiment: And I shall lose my life for want of language; If there be here German, or Dane, low Dutch, Italian, or French, let him speak to me; I'll Discover that which shall undo the Florentine. First Soldier Boskos vauvado: I understand thee, and can speak thy tongue. Kerely bonto, sir, betake thee to thy faith, for seventeen poniards are at thy bosom. PAROLLES O! First Soldier O, pray, pray, pray! Manka revania dulche. Second Lord Oscorbidulchos volivorco. First Soldier The general is content to spare thee yet; And, hoodwink'd as thou art, will lead thee on To gather from thee: haply thou mayst inform Something to save thy life. PAROLLES O, let me live! And all the secrets of our camp I'll show, Their force, their purposes; nay, I'll speak that Which you will wonder at. First Soldier But wilt thou faithfully? PAROLLES If I do not, damn me. First Soldier Acordo linta. Come on; thou art granted space. [Exit, with PAROLLES guarded. A short alarum within] Second Lord Go, tell the Count Rousillon, and my brother, We have caught the woodcock, and will keep him muffled Till we do hear from them. Second Soldier Captain, I will. Second Lord A' will betray us all unto ourselves: Inform on that. Second Soldier So I will, sir. Second Lord Till then I'll keep him dark and safely lock'd. [Exeunt] ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL ACT IV SCENE II Florence. The Widow's house. [Enter BERTRAM and DIANA] BERTRAM They told me that your name was Fontibell. DIANA No, my good lord, Diana. BERTRAM Titled goddess; And worth it, with addition! But, fair soul, In your fine frame hath love no quality? If quick fire of youth light not your mind, You are no maiden, but a monument: When you are dead, you should be such a one As you are now, for you are cold and stem; And now you should be as your mother was When your sweet self was got. DIANA She then was honest. BERTRAM So should you be. DIANA No: My mother did but duty; such, my lord, As you owe to your wife. BERTRAM No more o' that; I prithee, do not strive against my vows: I was compell'd to her; but I love thee By love's own sweet constraint, and will for ever Do thee all rights of service. DIANA Ay, so you serve us Till we serve you; but when you have our roses, You barely leave our thorns to prick ourselves And mock us with our bareness. BERTRAM How have I sworn! DIANA 'Tis not the many oaths that makes the truth, But the plain single vow that is vow'd true. What is not holy, that we swear not by, But take the High'st to witness: then, pray you, tell me, If I should swear by God's great attributes, I loved you dearly, would you believe my oaths, When I did love you ill? This has no holding, To swear by him whom I protest to love, That I will work against him: therefore your oaths Are words and poor conditions, but unseal'd, At least in my opinion. BERTRAM Change it, change it; Be not so holy-cruel: love is holy; And my integrity ne'er knew the crafts That you do charge men with. Stand no more off, But give thyself unto my sick desires, Who then recover: say thou art mine, and ever My love as it begins shall so persever. DIANA I see that men make ropes in such a scarre That we'll forsake ourselves. Give me that ring. BERTRAM I'll lend it thee, my dear; but have no power To give it from me. DIANA Will you not, my lord? BERTRAM It is an honour 'longing to our house, Bequeathed down from many ancestors; Which were the greatest obloquy i' the world In me to lose. DIANA Mine honour's such a ring: My chastity's the jewel of our house, Bequeathed down from many ancestors; Which were the greatest obloquy i' the world In me to lose: thus your own proper wisdom Brings in the champion Honour on my part, Against your vain assault. BERTRAM Here, take my ring: My house, mine honour, yea, my life, be thine, And I'll be bid by thee. DIANA When midnight comes, knock at my chamber-window: I'll order take my mother shall not hear. Now will I charge you in the band of truth, When you have conquer'd my yet maiden bed, Remain there but an hour, nor speak to me: My reasons are most strong; and you shall know them When back again this ring shall be deliver'd: And on your finger in the night I'll put Another ring, that what in time proceeds May token to the future our past deeds. Adieu, till then; then, fail not. You have won A wife of me, though there my hope be done. BERTRAM A heaven on earth I have won by wooing thee. [Exit] DIANA For which live long to thank both heaven and me! You may so in the end. My mother told me just how he would woo, As if she sat in 's heart; she says all men Have the like oaths: he had sworn to marry me When his wife's dead; therefore I'll lie with him When I am buried. Since Frenchmen are so braid, Marry that will, I live and die a maid: Only in this disguise I think't no sin To cozen him that would unjustly win. [Exit] ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL ACT IV SCENE III The Florentine camp. [Enter the two French Lords and some two or three Soldiers] First Lord You have not given him his mother's letter? Second Lord I have delivered it an hour since: there is something in't that stings his nature; for on the reading it he changed almost into another man. First Lord He has much worthy blame laid upon him for shaking off so good a wife and so sweet a lady. Second Lord Especially he hath incurred the everlasting displeasure of the king, who had even tuned his bounty to sing happiness to him. I will tell you a thing, but you shall let it dwell darkly with you. First Lord When you have spoken it, 'tis dead, and I am the grave of it. Second Lord He hath perverted a young gentlewoman here in Florence, of a most chaste renown; and this night he fleshes his will in the spoil of her honour: he hath given her his monumental ring, and thinks himself made in the unchaste composition. First Lord Now, God delay our rebellion! as we are ourselves, what things are we! Second Lord Merely our own traitors. And as in the common course of all treasons, we still see them reveal themselves, till they attain to their abhorred ends, so he that in this action contrives against his own nobility, in his proper stream o'erflows himself. First Lord Is it not meant damnable in us, to be trumpeters of our unlawful intents? We shall not then have his company to-night? Second Lord Not till after midnight; for he is dieted to his hour. First Lord That approaches apace; I would gladly have him see his company anatomized, that he might take a measure of his own judgments, wherein so curiously he had set this counterfeit. Second Lord We will not meddle with him till he come; for his presence must be the whip of the other. First Lord In the mean time, what hear you of these wars? Second Lord I hear there is an overture of peace. First Lord Nay, I assure you, a peace concluded. Second Lord What will Count Rousillon do then? will he travel higher, or return again into France? First Lord I perceive, by this demand, you are not altogether of his council. Second Lord Let it be forbid, sir; so should I be a great deal of his act. First Lord Sir, his wife some two months since fled from his house: her pretence is a pilgrimage to Saint Jaques le Grand; which holy undertaking with most austere sanctimony she accomplished; and, there residing the tenderness of her nature became as a prey to her grief; in fine, made a groan of her last breath, and now she sings in heaven. Second Lord How is this justified? First Lord The stronger part of it by her own letters, which makes her story true, even to the point of her death: her death itself, which could not be her office to say is come, was faithfully confirmed by the rector of the place. Second Lord Hath the count all this intelligence? First Lord Ay, and the particular confirmations, point from point, so to the full arming of the verity. Second Lord I am heartily sorry that he'll be glad of this. First Lord How mightily sometimes we make us comforts of our losses! Second Lord And how mightily some other times we drown our gain in tears! The great dignity that his valour hath here acquired for him shall at home be encountered with a shame as ample. First Lord The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together: our virtues would be proud, if our faults whipped them not; and our crimes would despair, if they were not cherished by our virtues. [Enter a Messenger] How now! where's your master? Servant He met the duke in the street, sir, of whom he hath taken a solemn leave: his lordship will next morning for France. The duke hath offered him letters of commendations to the king. Second Lord They shall be no more than needful there, if they were more than they can commend. First Lord They cannot be too sweet for the king's tartness. Here's his lordship now. [Enter BERTRAM] How now, my lord! is't not after midnight? BERTRAM I have to-night dispatched sixteen businesses, a month's length a-piece, by an abstract of success: I have congied with the duke, done my adieu with his nearest; buried a wife, mourned for her; writ to my lady mother I am returning; entertained my convoy; and between these main parcels of dispatch effected many nicer needs; the last was the greatest, but that I have not ended yet. Second Lord If the business be of any difficulty, and this morning your departure hence, it requires haste of your lordship. BERTRAM I mean, the business is not ended, as fearing to hear of it hereafter. But shall we have this dialogue between the fool and the soldier? Come, bring forth this counterfeit module, he has deceived me, like a double-meaning prophesier. Second Lord Bring him forth: has sat i' the stocks all night, poor gallant knave. BERTRAM No matter: his heels have deserved it, in usurping his spurs so long. How does he carry himself? Second Lord I have told your lordship already, the stocks carry him. But to answer you as you would be understood; he weeps like a wench that had shed her milk: he hath confessed himself to Morgan, whom he supposes to be a friar, from the time of his remembrance to this very instant disaster of his setting i' the stocks: and what think you he hath confessed? BERTRAM Nothing of me, has a'? Second Lord His confession is taken, and it shall be read to his face: if your lordship be in't, as I believe you are, you must have the patience to hear it. [Enter PAROLLES guarded, and First Soldier] BERTRAM A plague upon him! muffled! he can say nothing of me: hush, hush! First Lord Hoodman comes! Portotartarosa First Soldier He calls for the tortures: what will you say without 'em? PAROLLES I will confess what I know without constraint: if ye pinch me like a pasty, I can say no more. First Soldier Bosko chimurcho. First Lord Boblibindo chicurmurco. First Soldier You are a merciful general. Our general bids you answer to what I shall ask you out of a note. PAROLLES And truly, as I hope to live. First Soldier [Reads] 'First demand of him how many horse the duke is strong.' What say you to that? PAROLLES Five or six thousand; but very weak and unserviceable: the troops are all scattered, and the commanders very poor rogues, upon my reputation and credit and as I hope to live. First Soldier Shall I set down your answer so? PAROLLES Do: I'll take the sacrament on't, how and which way you will. BERTRAM All's one to him. What a past-saving slave is this! First Lord You're deceived, my lord: this is Monsieur Parolles, the gallant militarist,--that was his own phrase,--that had the whole theoric of war in the knot of his scarf, and the practise in the chape of his dagger. Second Lord I will never trust a man again for keeping his sword clean. nor believe he can have every thing in him by wearing his apparel neatly. First Soldier Well, that's set down. PAROLLES Five or six thousand horse, I said,-- I will say true,--or thereabouts, set down, for I'll speak truth. First Lord He's very near the truth in this. BERTRAM But I con him no thanks for't, in the nature he delivers it. PAROLLES Poor rogues, I pray you, say. First Soldier Well, that's set down. PAROLLES I humbly thank you, sir: a truth's a truth, the rogues are marvellous poor. First Soldier [Reads] 'Demand of him, of what strength they are a-foot.' What say you to that? PAROLLES By my troth, sir, if I were to live this present hour, I will tell true. Let me see: Spurio, a hundred and fifty; Sebastian, so many; Corambus, so many; Jaques, so many; Guiltian, Cosmo, Lodowick, and Gratii, two hundred and fifty each; mine own company, Chitopher, Vaumond, Bentii, two hundred and fifty each: so that the muster-file, rotten and sound, upon my life, amounts not to fifteen thousand poll; half of the which dare not shake snow from off their cassocks, lest they shake themselves to pieces. BERTRAM What shall be done to him? First Lord Nothing, but let him have thanks. Demand of him my condition, and what credit I have with the duke. First Soldier Well, that's set down. [Reads] 'You shall demand of him, whether one Captain Dumain be i' the camp, a Frenchman; what his reputation is with the duke; what his valour, honesty, and expertness in wars; or whether he thinks it were not possible, with well-weighing sums of gold, to corrupt him to revolt.' What say you to this? what do you know of it? PAROLLES I beseech you, let me answer to the particular of the inter'gatories: demand them singly. First Soldier Do you know this Captain Dumain? PAROLLES I know him: a' was a botcher's 'prentice in Paris, from whence he was whipped for getting the shrieve's fool with child,--a dumb innocent, that could not say him nay. BERTRAM Nay, by your leave, hold your hands; though I know his brains are forfeit to the next tile that falls. First Soldier Well, is this captain in the duke of Florence's camp? PAROLLES Upon my knowledge, he is, and lousy. First Lord Nay look not so upon me; we shall hear of your lordship anon. First Soldier What is his reputation with the duke? PAROLLES The duke knows him for no other but a poor officer of mine; and writ to me this other day to turn him out o' the band: I think I have his letter in my pocket. First Soldier Marry, we'll search. PAROLLES In good sadness, I do not know; either it is there, or it is upon a file with the duke's other letters in my tent. First Soldier Here 'tis; here's a paper: shall I read it to you? PAROLLES I do not know if it be it or no. BERTRAM Our interpreter does it well. First Lord Excellently. First Soldier [Reads] 'Dian, the count's a fool, and full of gold,'-- PAROLLES That is not the duke's letter, sir; that is an advertisement to a proper maid in Florence, one Diana, to take heed of the allurement of one Count Rousillon, a foolish idle boy, but for all that very ruttish: I pray you, sir, put it up again. First Soldier Nay, I'll read it first, by your favour. PAROLLES My meaning in't, I protest, was very honest in the behalf of the maid; for I knew the young count to be a dangerous and lascivious boy, who is a whale to virginity and devours up all the fry it finds. BERTRAM Damnable both-sides rogue! First Soldier [Reads] 'When he swears oaths, bid him drop gold, and take it; After he scores, he never pays the score: Half won is match well made; match, and well make it; He ne'er pays after-debts, take it before; And say a soldier, Dian, told thee this, Men are to mell with, boys are not to kiss: For count of this, the count's a fool, I know it, Who pays before, but not when he does owe it. Thine, as he vowed to thee in thine ear, PAROLLES.' BERTRAM He shall be whipped through the army with this rhyme in's forehead. Second Lord This is your devoted friend, sir, the manifold linguist and the armipotent soldier. BERTRAM I could endure any thing before but a cat, and now he's a cat to me. First Soldier I perceive, sir, by the general's looks, we shall be fain to hang you. PAROLLES My life, sir, in any case: not that I am afraid to die; but that, my offences being many, I would repent out the remainder of nature: let me live, sir, in a dungeon, i' the stocks, or any where, so I may live. First Soldier We'll see what may be done, so you confess freely; therefore, once more to this Captain Dumain: you have answered to his reputation with the duke and to his valour: what is his honesty? PAROLLES He will steal, sir, an egg out of a cloister: for rapes and ravishments he parallels Nessus: he professes not keeping of oaths; in breaking 'em he is stronger than Hercules: he will lie, sir, with such volubility, that you would think truth were a fool: drunkenness is his best virtue, for he will be swine-drunk; and in his sleep he does little harm, save to his bed-clothes about him; but they know his conditions and lay him in straw. I have but little more to say, sir, of his honesty: he has every thing that an honest man should not have; what an honest man should have, he has nothing. First Lord I begin to love him for this. BERTRAM For this description of thine honesty? A pox upon him for me, he's more and more a cat. First Soldier What say you to his expertness in war? PAROLLES Faith, sir, he has led the drum before the English tragedians; to belie him, I will not, and more of his soldiership I know not; except, in that country he had the honour to be the officer at a place there called Mile-end, to instruct for the doubling of files: I would do the man what honour I can, but of this I am not certain. First Lord He hath out-villained villany so far, that the rarity redeems him. BERTRAM A pox on him, he's a cat still. First Soldier His qualities being at this poor price, I need not to ask you if gold will corrupt him to revolt. PAROLLES Sir, for a quart d'ecu he will sell the fee-simple of his salvation, the inheritance of it; and cut the entail from all remainders, and a perpetual succession for it perpetually. First Soldier What's his brother, the other Captain Dumain? Second Lord Why does be ask him of me? First Soldier What's he? PAROLLES E'en a crow o' the same nest; not altogether so great as the first in goodness, but greater a great deal in evil: he excels his brother for a coward, yet his brother is reputed one of the best that is: in a retreat he outruns any lackey; marry, in coming on he has the cramp. First Soldier If your life be saved, will you undertake to betray the Florentine? PAROLLES Ay, and the captain of his horse, Count Rousillon. First Soldier I'll whisper with the general, and know his pleasure. PAROLLES [Aside] I'll no more drumming; a plague of all drums! Only to seem to deserve well, and to beguile the supposition of that lascivious young boy the count, have I run into this danger. Yet who would have suspected an ambush where I was taken? First Soldier There is no remedy, sir, but you must die: the general says, you that have so traitorously discovered the secrets of your army and made such pestiferous reports of men very nobly held, can serve the world for no honest use; therefore you must die. Come, headsman, off with his head. PAROLLES O Lord, sir, let me live, or let me see my death! First Lord That shall you, and take your leave of all your friends. [Unblinding him] So, look about you: know you any here? BERTRAM Good morrow, noble captain. Second Lord God bless you, Captain Parolles. First Lord God save you, noble captain. Second Lord Captain, what greeting will you to my Lord Lafeu? I am for France. First Lord Good captain, will you give me a copy of the sonnet you writ to Diana in behalf of the Count Rousillon? an I were not a very coward, I'ld compel it of you: but fare you well. [Exeunt BERTRAM and Lords] First Soldier You are undone, captain, all but your scarf; that has a knot on't yet PAROLLES Who cannot be crushed with a plot? First Soldier If you could find out a country where but women were that had received so much shame, you might begin an impudent nation. Fare ye well, sir; I am for France too: we shall speak of you there. [Exit with Soldiers] PAROLLES Yet am I thankful: if my heart were great, 'Twould burst at this. Captain I'll be no more; But I will eat and drink, and sleep as soft As captain shall: simply the thing I am Shall make me live. Who knows himself a braggart, Let him fear this, for it will come to pass that every braggart shall be found an ass. Rust, sword? cool, blushes! and, Parolles, live Safest in shame! being fool'd, by foolery thrive! There's place and means for every man alive. I'll after them. [Exit] ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL ACT IV SCENE IV Florence. The Widow's house. [Enter HELENA, Widow, and DIANA] HELENA That you may well perceive I have not wrong'd you, One of the greatest in the Christian world Shall be my surety; 'fore whose throne 'tis needful, Ere I can perfect mine intents, to kneel: Time was, I did him a desired office, Dear almost as his life; which gratitude Through flinty Tartar's bosom would peep forth, And answer, thanks: I duly am inform'd His grace is at Marseilles; to which place We have convenient convoy. You must know I am supposed dead: the army breaking, My husband hies him home; where, heaven aiding, And by the leave of my good lord the king, We'll be before our welcome. Widow Gentle madam, You never had a servant to whose trust Your business was more welcome. HELENA Nor you, mistress, Ever a friend whose thoughts more truly labour To recompense your love: doubt not but heaven Hath brought me up to be your daughter's dower, As it hath fated her to be my motive And helper to a husband. But, O strange men! That can such sweet use make of what they hate, When saucy trusting of the cozen'd thoughts Defiles the pitchy night: so lust doth play With what it loathes for that which is away. But more of this hereafter. You, Diana, Under my poor instructions yet must suffer Something in my behalf. DIANA Let death and honesty Go with your impositions, I am yours Upon your will to suffer. HELENA Yet, I pray you: But with the word the time will bring on summer, When briers shall have leaves as well as thorns, And be as sweet as sharp. We must away; Our wagon is prepared, and time revives us: All's well that ends well; still the fine's the crown; Whate'er the course, the end is the renown. [Exeunt] ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL ACT IV SCENE V Rousillon. The COUNT's palace. [Enter COUNTESS, LAFEU, and Clown] LAFEU No, no, no, your son was misled with a snipt-taffeta fellow there, whose villanous saffron would have made all the unbaked and doughy youth of a nation in his colour: your daughter-in-law had been alive at this hour, and your son here at home, more advanced by the king than by that red-tailed humble-bee I speak of. COUNTESS I would I had not known him; it was the death of the most virtuous gentlewoman that ever nature had praise for creating. If she had partaken of my flesh, and cost me the dearest groans of a mother, I could not have owed her a more rooted love. LAFEU 'Twas a good lady, 'twas a good lady: we may pick a thousand salads ere we light on such another herb. Clown Indeed, sir, she was the sweet marjoram of the salad, or rather, the herb of grace. LAFEU They are not herbs, you knave; they are nose-herbs. Clown I am no great Nebuchadnezzar, sir; I have not much skill in grass. LAFEU Whether dost thou profess thyself, a knave or a fool? Clown A fool, sir, at a woman's service, and a knave at a man's. LAFEU Your distinction? Clown I would cozen the man of his wife and do his service. LAFEU So you were a knave at his service, indeed. Clown And I would give his wife my bauble, sir, to do her service. LAFEU I will subscribe for thee, thou art both knave and fool. Clown At your service. LAFEU No, no, no. Clown Why, sir, if I cannot serve you, I can serve as great a prince as you are. LAFEU Who's that? a Frenchman? Clown Faith, sir, a' has an English name; but his fisnomy is more hotter in France than there. LAFEU What prince is that? Clown The black prince, sir; alias, the prince of darkness; alias, the devil. LAFEU Hold thee, there's my purse: I give thee not this to suggest thee from thy master thou talkest of; serve him still. Clown I am a woodland fellow, sir, that always loved a great fire; and the master I speak of ever keeps a good fire. But, sure, he is the prince of the world; let his nobility remain in's court. I am for the house with the narrow gate, which I take to be too little for pomp to enter: some that humble themselves may; but the many will be too chill and tender, and they'll be for the flowery way that leads to the broad gate and the great fire. LAFEU Go thy ways, I begin to be aweary of thee; and I tell thee so before, because I would not fall out with thee. Go thy ways: let my horses be well looked to, without any tricks. Clown If I put any tricks upon 'em, sir, they shall be jades' tricks; which are their own right by the law of nature. [Exit] LAFEU A shrewd knave and an unhappy. COUNTESS So he is. My lord that's gone made himself much sport out of him: by his authority he remains here, which he thinks is a patent for his sauciness; and, indeed, he has no pace, but runs where he will. LAFEU I like him well; 'tis not amiss. And I was about to tell you, since I heard of the good lady's death and that my lord your son was upon his return home, I moved the king my master to speak in the behalf of my daughter; which, in the minority of them both, his majesty, out of a self-gracious remembrance, did first propose: his highness hath promised me to do it: and, to stop up the displeasure he hath conceived against your son, there is no fitter matter. How does your ladyship like it? COUNTESS With very much content, my lord; and I wish it happily effected. LAFEU His highness comes post from Marseilles, of as able body as when he numbered thirty: he will be here to-morrow, or I am deceived by him that in such intelligence hath seldom failed. COUNTESS It rejoices me, that I hope I shall see him ere I die. I have letters that my son will be here to-night: I shall beseech your lordship to remain with me till they meet together. LAFEU Madam, I was thinking with what manners I might safely be admitted. COUNTESS You need but plead your honourable privilege. LAFEU Lady, of that I have made a bold charter; but I thank my God it holds yet. [Re-enter Clown] Clown O madam, yonder's my lord your son with a patch of velvet on's face: whether there be a scar under't or no, the velvet knows; but 'tis a goodly patch of velvet: his left cheek is a cheek of two pile and a half, but his right cheek is worn bare. LAFEU A scar nobly got, or a noble scar, is a good livery of honour; so belike is that. Clown But it is your carbonadoed face. LAFEU Let us go see your son, I pray you: I long to talk with the young noble soldier. Clown Faith there's a dozen of 'em, with delicate fine hats and most courteous feathers, which bow the head and nod at every man. [Exeunt] ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL ACT V SCENE I Marseilles. A street. [Enter HELENA, Widow, and DIANA, with two Attendants] HELENA But this exceeding posting day and night Must wear your spirits low; we cannot help it: But since you have made the days and nights as one, To wear your gentle limbs in my affairs, Be bold you do so grow in my requital As nothing can unroot you. In happy time; [Enter a Gentleman] This man may help me to his majesty's ear, If he would spend his power. God save you, sir. Gentleman And you. HELENA Sir, I have seen you in the court of France. Gentleman I have been sometimes there. HELENA I do presume, sir, that you are not fallen From the report that goes upon your goodness; An therefore, goaded with most sharp occasions, Which lay nice manners by, I put you to The use of your own virtues, for the which I shall continue thankful. Gentleman What's your will? HELENA That it will please you To give this poor petition to the king, And aid me with that store of power you have To come into his presence. Gentleman The king's not here. HELENA Not here, sir! Gentleman Not, indeed: He hence removed last night and with more haste Than is his use. Widow Lord, how we lose our pains! HELENA ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL yet, Though time seem so adverse and means unfit. I do beseech you, whither is he gone? Gentleman Marry, as I take it, to Rousillon; Whither I am going. HELENA I do beseech you, sir, Since you are like to see the king before me, Commend the paper to his gracious hand, Which I presume shall render you no blame But rather make you thank your pains for it. I will come after you with what good speed Our means will make us means. Gentleman This I'll do for you. HELENA And you shall find yourself to be well thank'd, Whate'er falls more. We must to horse again. Go, go, provide. [Exeunt] ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL ACT V SCENE II Rousillon. Before the COUNT's palace. [Enter Clown, and PAROLLES, following] PAROLLES Good Monsieur Lavache, give my Lord Lafeu this letter: I have ere now, sir, been better known to you, when I have held familiarity with fresher clothes; but I am now, sir, muddied in fortune's mood, and smell somewhat strong of her strong displeasure. Clown Truly, fortune's displeasure is but sluttish, if it smell so strongly as thou speakest of: I will henceforth eat no fish of fortune's buttering. Prithee, allow the wind. PAROLLES Nay, you need not to stop your nose, sir; I spake but by a metaphor. Clown Indeed, sir, if your metaphor stink, I will stop my nose; or against any man's metaphor. Prithee, get thee further. PAROLLES Pray you, sir, deliver me this paper. Clown Foh! prithee, stand away: a paper from fortune's close-stool to give to a nobleman! Look, here he comes himself. [Enter LAFEU] Here is a purr of fortune's, sir, or of fortune's cat,--but not a musk-cat,--that has fallen into the unclean fishpond of her displeasure, and, as he says, is muddied withal: pray you, sir, use the carp as you may; for he looks like a poor, decayed, ingenious, foolish, rascally knave. I do pity his distress in my similes of comfort and leave him to your lordship. [Exit] PAROLLES My lord, I am a man whom fortune hath cruelly scratched. LAFEU And what would you have me to do? 'Tis too late to pare her nails now. Wherein have you played the knave with fortune, that she should scratch you, who of herself is a good lady and would not have knaves thrive long under her? There's a quart d'ecu for you: let the justices make you and fortune friends: I am for other business. PAROLLES I beseech your honour to hear me one single word. LAFEU You beg a single penny more: come, you shall ha't; save your word. PAROLLES My name, my good lord, is Parolles. LAFEU You beg more than 'word,' then. Cox my passion! give me your hand. How does your drum? PAROLLES O my good lord, you were the first that found me! LAFEU Was I, in sooth? and I was the first that lost thee. PAROLLES It lies in you, my lord, to bring me in some grace, for you did bring me out. LAFEU Out upon thee, knave! dost thou put upon me at once both the office of God and the devil? One brings thee in grace and the other brings thee out. [Trumpets sound] The king's coming; I know by his trumpets. Sirrah, inquire further after me; I had talk of you last night: though you are a fool and a knave, you shall eat; go to, follow. PAROLLES I praise God for you. [Exeunt] ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL ACT V SCENE III Rousillon. The COUNT's palace. [Flourish. Enter KING, COUNTESS, LAFEU, the two French Lords, with Attendants] KING We lost a jewel of her; and our esteem Was made much poorer by it: but your son, As mad in folly, lack'd the sense to know Her estimation home. COUNTESS 'Tis past, my liege; And I beseech your majesty to make it Natural rebellion, done i' the blaze of youth; When oil and fire, too strong for reason's force, O'erbears it and burns on. KING My honour'd lady, I have forgiven and forgotten all; Though my revenges were high bent upon him, And watch'd the time to shoot. LAFEU This I must say, But first I beg my pardon, the young lord Did to his majesty, his mother and his lady Offence of mighty note; but to himself The greatest wrong of all. He lost a wife Whose beauty did astonish the survey Of richest eyes, whose words all ears took captive, Whose dear perfection hearts that scorn'd to serve Humbly call'd mistress. KING Praising what is lost Makes the remembrance dear. Well, call him hither; We are reconciled, and the first view shall kill All repetition: let him not ask our pardon; The nature of his great offence is dead, And deeper than oblivion we do bury The incensing relics of it: let him approach, A stranger, no offender; and inform him So 'tis our will he should. Gentleman I shall, my liege. [Exit] KING What says he to your daughter? have you spoke? LAFEU All that he is hath reference to your highness. KING Then shall we have a match. I have letters sent me That set him high in fame. [Enter BERTRAM] LAFEU He looks well on't. KING I am not a day of season, For thou mayst see a sunshine and a hail In me at once: but to the brightest beams Distracted clouds give way; so stand thou forth; The time is fair again. BERTRAM My high-repented blames, Dear sovereign, pardon to me. KING All is whole; Not one word more of the consumed time. Let's take the instant by the forward top; For we are old, and on our quick'st decrees The inaudible and noiseless foot of Time Steals ere we can effect them. You remember The daughter of this lord? BERTRAM Admiringly, my liege, at first I stuck my choice upon her, ere my heart Durst make too bold a herald of my tongue Where the impression of mine eye infixing, Contempt his scornful perspective did lend me, Which warp'd the line of every other favour; Scorn'd a fair colour, or express'd it stolen; Extended or contracted all proportions To a most hideous object: thence it came That she whom all men praised and whom myself, Since I have lost, have loved, was in mine eye The dust that did offend it. KING Well excused: That thou didst love her, strikes some scores away From the great compt: but love that comes too late, Like a remorseful pardon slowly carried, To the great sender turns a sour offence, Crying, 'That's good that's gone.' Our rash faults Make trivial price of serious things we have, Not knowing them until we know their grave: Oft our displeasures, to ourselves unjust, Destroy our friends and after weep their dust Our own love waking cries to see what's done, While shame full late sleeps out the afternoon. Be this sweet Helen's knell, and now forget her. Send forth your amorous token for fair Maudlin: The main consents are had; and here we'll stay To see our widower's second marriage-day. COUNTESS Which better than the first, O dear heaven, bless! Or, ere they meet, in me, O nature, cesse! LAFEU Come on, my son, in whom my house's name Must be digested, give a favour from you To sparkle in the spirits of my daughter, That she may quickly come. [BERTRAM gives a ring] By my old beard, And every hair that's on't, Helen, that's dead, Was a sweet creature: such a ring as this, The last that e'er I took her at court, I saw upon her finger. BERTRAM Hers it was not. KING Now, pray you, let me see it; for mine eye, While I was speaking, oft was fasten'd to't. This ring was mine; and, when I gave it Helen, I bade her, if her fortunes ever stood Necessitied to help, that by this token I would relieve her. Had you that craft, to reave her Of what should stead her most? BERTRAM My gracious sovereign, Howe'er it pleases you to take it so, The ring was never hers. COUNTESS Son, on my life, I have seen her wear it; and she reckon'd it At her life's rate. LAFEU I am sure I saw her wear it. BERTRAM You are deceived, my lord; she never saw it: In Florence was it from a casement thrown me, Wrapp'd in a paper, which contain'd the name Of her that threw it: noble she was, and thought I stood engaged: but when I had subscribed To mine own fortune and inform'd her fully I could not answer in that course of honour As she had made the overture, she ceased In heavy satisfaction and would never Receive the ring again. KING Plutus himself, That knows the tinct and multiplying medicine, Hath not in nature's mystery more science Than I have in this ring: 'twas mine, 'twas Helen's, Whoever gave it you. Then, if you know That you are well acquainted with yourself, Confess 'twas hers, and by what rough enforcement You got it from her: she call'd the saints to surety That she would never put it from her finger, Unless she gave it to yourself in bed, Where you have never come, or sent it us Upon her great disaster. BERTRAM She never saw it. KING Thou speak'st it falsely, as I love mine honour; And makest conjectural fears to come into me Which I would fain shut out. If it should prove That thou art so inhuman,--'twill not prove so;-- And yet I know not: thou didst hate her deadly, And she is dead; which nothing, but to close Her eyes myself, could win me to believe, More than to see this ring. Take him away. [Guards seize BERTRAM] My fore-past proofs, howe'er the matter fall, Shall tax my fears of little vanity, Having vainly fear'd too little. Away with him! We'll sift this matter further. BERTRAM If you shall prove This ring was ever hers, you shall as easy Prove that I husbanded her bed in Florence, Where yet she never was. [Exit, guarded] KING I am wrapp'd in dismal thinkings. [Enter a Gentleman] Gentleman Gracious sovereign, Whether I have been to blame or no, I know not: Here's a petition from a Florentine, Who hath for four or five removes come short To tender it herself. I undertook it, Vanquish'd thereto by the fair grace and speech Of the poor suppliant, who by this I know Is here attending: her business looks in her With an importing visage; and she told me, In a sweet verbal brief, it did concern Your highness with herself. KING [Reads] Upon his many protestations to marry me when his wife was dead, I blush to say it, he won me. Now is the Count Rousillon a widower: his vows are forfeited to me, and my honour's paid to him. He stole from Florence, taking no leave, and I follow him to his country for justice: grant it me, O king! in you it best lies; otherwise a seducer flourishes, and a poor maid is undone. DIANA CAPILET. LAFEU I will buy me a son-in-law in a fair, and toll for this: I'll none of him. KING The heavens have thought well on thee Lafeu, To bring forth this discovery. Seek these suitors: Go speedily and bring again the count. I am afeard the life of Helen, lady, Was foully snatch'd. COUNTESS Now, justice on the doers! [Re-enter BERTRAM, guarded] KING I wonder, sir, sith wives are monsters to you, And that you fly them as you swear them lordship, Yet you desire to marry. [Enter Widow and DIANA] What woman's that? DIANA I am, my lord, a wretched Florentine, Derived from the ancient Capilet: My suit, as I do understand, you know, And therefore know how far I may be pitied. Widow I am her mother, sir, whose age and honour Both suffer under this complaint we bring, And both shall cease, without your remedy. KING Come hither, count; do you know these women? BERTRAM My lord, I neither can nor will deny But that I know them: do they charge me further? DIANA Why do you look so strange upon your wife? BERTRAM She's none of mine, my lord. DIANA If you shall marry, You give away this hand, and that is mine; You give away heaven's vows, and those are mine; You give away myself, which is known mine; For I by vow am so embodied yours, That she which marries you must marry me, Either both or none. LAFEU Your reputation comes too short for my daughter; you are no husband for her. BERTRAM My lord, this is a fond and desperate creature, Whom sometime I have laugh'd with: let your highness Lay a more noble thought upon mine honour Than for to think that I would sink it here. KING Sir, for my thoughts, you have them ill to friend Till your deeds gain them: fairer prove your honour Than in my thought it lies. DIANA Good my lord, Ask him upon his oath, if he does think He had not my virginity. KING What say'st thou to her? BERTRAM She's impudent, my lord, And was a common gamester to the camp. DIANA He does me wrong, my lord; if I were so, He might have bought me at a common price: Do not believe him. O, behold this ring, Whose high respect and rich validity Did lack a parallel; yet for all that He gave it to a commoner o' the camp, If I be one. COUNTESS He blushes, and 'tis it: Of six preceding ancestors, that gem, Conferr'd by testament to the sequent issue, Hath it been owed and worn. This is his wife; That ring's a thousand proofs. KING Methought you said You saw one here in court could witness it. DIANA I did, my lord, but loath am to produce So bad an instrument: his name's Parolles. LAFEU I saw the man to-day, if man he be. KING Find him, and bring him hither. [Exit an Attendant] BERTRAM What of him? He's quoted for a most perfidious slave, With all the spots o' the world tax'd and debosh'd; Whose nature sickens but to speak a truth. Am I or that or this for what he'll utter, That will speak any thing? KING She hath that ring of yours. BERTRAM I think she has: certain it is I liked her, And boarded her i' the wanton way of youth: She knew her distance and did angle for me, Madding my eagerness with her restraint, As all impediments in fancy's course Are motives of more fancy; and, in fine, Her infinite cunning, with her modern grace, Subdued me to her rate: she got the ring; And I had that which any inferior might At market-price have bought. DIANA I must be patient: You, that have turn'd off a first so noble wife, May justly diet me. I pray you yet; Since you lack virtue, I will lose a husband; Send for your ring, I will return it home, And give me mine again. BERTRAM I have it not. KING What ring was yours, I pray you? DIANA Sir, much like The same upon your finger. KING Know you this ring? this ring was his of late. DIANA And this was it I gave him, being abed. KING The story then goes false, you threw it him Out of a casement. DIANA I have spoke the truth. [Enter PAROLLES] BERTRAM My lord, I do confess the ring was hers. KING You boggle shrewdly, every feather stars you. Is this the man you speak of? DIANA Ay, my lord. KING Tell me, sirrah, but tell me true, I charge you, Not fearing the displeasure of your master, Which on your just proceeding I'll keep off, By him and by this woman here what know you? PAROLLES So please your majesty, my master hath been an honourable gentleman: tricks he hath had in him, which gentlemen have. KING Come, come, to the purpose: did he love this woman? PAROLLES Faith, sir, he did love her; but how? KING How, I pray you? PAROLLES He did love her, sir, as a gentleman loves a woman. KING How is that? PAROLLES He loved her, sir, and loved her not. KING As thou art a knave, and no knave. What an equivocal companion is this! PAROLLES I am a poor man, and at your majesty's command. LAFEU He's a good drum, my lord, but a naughty orator. DIANA Do you know he promised me marriage? PAROLLES Faith, I know more than I'll speak. KING But wilt thou not speak all thou knowest? PAROLLES Yes, so please your majesty. I did go between them, as I said; but more than that, he loved her: for indeed he was mad for her, and talked of Satan and of Limbo and of Furies and I know not what: yet I was in that credit with them at that time that I knew of their going to bed, and of other motions, as promising her marriage, and things which would derive me ill will to speak of; therefore I will not speak what I know. KING Thou hast spoken all already, unless thou canst say they are married: but thou art too fine in thy evidence; therefore stand aside. This ring, you say, was yours? DIANA Ay, my good lord. KING Where did you buy it? or who gave it you? DIANA It was not given me, nor I did not buy it. KING Who lent it you? DIANA It was not lent me neither. KING Where did you find it, then? DIANA I found it not. KING If it were yours by none of all these ways, How could you give it him? DIANA I never gave it him. LAFEU This woman's an easy glove, my lord; she goes off and on at pleasure. KING This ring was mine; I gave it his first wife. DIANA It might be yours or hers, for aught I know. KING Take her away; I do not like her now; To prison with her: and away with him. Unless thou tell'st me where thou hadst this ring, Thou diest within this hour. DIANA I'll never tell you. KING Take her away. DIANA I'll put in bail, my liege. KING I think thee now some common customer. DIANA By Jove, if ever I knew man, 'twas you. KING Wherefore hast thou accused him all this while? DIANA Because he's guilty, and he is not guilty: He knows I am no maid, and he'll swear to't; I'll swear I am a maid, and he knows not. Great king, I am no strumpet, by my life; I am either maid, or else this old man's wife. KING She does abuse our ears: to prison with her. DIANA Good mother, fetch my bail. Stay, royal sir: [Exit Widow] The jeweller that owes the ring is sent for, And he shall surety me. But for this lord, Who hath abused me, as he knows himself, Though yet he never harm'd me, here I quit him: He knows himself my bed he hath defiled; And at that time he got his wife with child: Dead though she be, she feels her young one kick: So there's my riddle: one that's dead is quick: And now behold the meaning. [Re-enter Widow, with HELENA] KING Is there no exorcist Beguiles the truer office of mine eyes? Is't real that I see? HELENA No, my good lord; 'Tis but the shadow of a wife you see, The name and not the thing. BERTRAM Both, both. O, pardon! HELENA O my good lord, when I was like this maid, I found you wondrous kind. There is your ring; And, look you, here's your letter; this it says: 'When from my finger you can get this ring And are by me with child,' &c. This is done: Will you be mine, now you are doubly won? BERTRAM If she, my liege, can make me know this clearly, I'll love her dearly, ever, ever dearly. HELENA If it appear not plain and prove untrue, Deadly divorce step between me and you! O my dear mother, do I see you living? LAFEU Mine eyes smell onions; I shall weep anon: [To PAROLLES] Good Tom Drum, lend me a handkercher: so, I thank thee: wait on me home, I'll make sport with thee: Let thy courtesies alone, they are scurvy ones. KING Let us from point to point this story know, To make the even truth in pleasure flow. [To DIANA] If thou be'st yet a fresh uncropped flower, Choose thou thy husband, and I'll pay thy dower; For I can guess that by thy honest aid Thou keep'st a wife herself, thyself a maid. Of that and all the progress, more or less, Resolvedly more leisure shall express: All yet seems well; and if it end so meet, The bitter past, more welcome is the sweet. [Flourish] ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL EPILOGUE KING The king's a beggar, now the play is done: All is well ended, if this suit be won, That you express content; which we will pay, With strife to please you, day exceeding day: Ours be your patience then, and yours our parts; Your gentle hands lend us, and take our hearts. [Exeunt] AS YOU LIKE IT DRAMATIS PERSONAE DUKE SENIOR living in banishment. DUKE FREDERICK his brother, an usurper of his dominions. AMIENS | | lords attending on the banished duke. JAQUES | LE BEAU a courtier attending upon Frederick. CHARLES wrestler to Frederick. OLIVER | | JAQUES (JAQUES DE BOYS:) | sons of Sir Rowland de Boys. | ORLANDO | ADAM | | servants to Oliver. DENNIS | TOUCHSTONE a clown. SIR OLIVER MARTEXT a vicar. CORIN | | shepherds. SILVIUS | WILLIAM a country fellow in love with Audrey. A person representing HYMEN. (HYMEN:) ROSALIND daughter to the banished duke. CELIA daughter to Frederick. PHEBE a shepherdess. AUDREY a country wench. Lords, pages, and attendants, &c. (Forester:) (A Lord:) (First Lord:) (Second Lord:) (First Page:) (Second Page:) SCENE Oliver's house; Duke Frederick's court; and the Forest of Arden. AS YOU LIKE IT ACT I SCENE I Orchard of Oliver's house. [Enter ORLANDO and ADAM] ORLANDO As I remember, Adam, it was upon this fashion bequeathed me by will but poor a thousand crowns, and, as thou sayest, charged my brother, on his blessing, to breed me well: and there begins my sadness. My brother Jaques he keeps at school, and report speaks goldenly of his profit: for my part, he keeps me rustically at home, or, to speak more properly, stays me here at home unkept; for call you that keeping for a gentleman of my birth, that differs not from the stalling of an ox? His horses are bred better; for, besides that they are fair with their feeding, they are taught their manage, and to that end riders dearly hired: but I, his brother, gain nothing under him but growth; for the which his animals on his dunghills are as much bound to him as I. Besides this nothing that he so plentifully gives me, the something that nature gave me his countenance seems to take from me: he lets me feed with his hinds, bars me the place of a brother, and, as much as in him lies, mines my gentility with my education. This is it, Adam, that grieves me; and the spirit of my father, which I think is within me, begins to mutiny against this servitude: I will no longer endure it, though yet I know no wise remedy how to avoid it. ADAM Yonder comes my master, your brother. ORLANDO Go apart, Adam, and thou shalt hear how he will shake me up. [Enter OLIVER] OLIVER Now, sir! what make you here? ORLANDO Nothing: I am not taught to make any thing. OLIVER What mar you then, sir? ORLANDO Marry, sir, I am helping you to mar that which God made, a poor unworthy brother of yours, with idleness. OLIVER Marry, sir, be better employed, and be naught awhile. ORLANDO Shall I keep your hogs and eat husks with them? What prodigal portion have I spent, that I should come to such penury? OLIVER Know you where your are, sir? ORLANDO O, sir, very well; here in your orchard. OLIVER Know you before whom, sir? ORLANDO Ay, better than him I am before knows me. I know you are my eldest brother; and, in the gentle condition of blood, you should so know me. The courtesy of nations allows you my better, in that you are the first-born; but the same tradition takes not away my blood, were there twenty brothers betwixt us: I have as much of my father in me as you; albeit, I confess, your coming before me is nearer to his reverence. OLIVER What, boy! ORLANDO Come, come, elder brother, you are too young in this. OLIVER Wilt thou lay hands on me, villain? ORLANDO I am no villain; I am the youngest son of Sir Rowland de Boys; he was my father, and he is thrice a villain that says such a father begot villains. Wert thou not my brother, I would not take this hand from thy throat till this other had pulled out thy tongue for saying so: thou hast railed on thyself. ADAM Sweet masters, be patient: for your father's remembrance, be at accord. OLIVER Let me go, I say. ORLANDO I will not, till I please: you shall hear me. My father charged you in his will to give me good education: you have trained me like a peasant, obscuring and hiding from me all gentleman-like qualities. The spirit of my father grows strong in me, and I will no longer endure it: therefore allow me such exercises as may become a gentleman, or give me the poor allottery my father left me by testament; with that I will go buy my fortunes. OLIVER And what wilt thou do? beg, when that is spent? Well, sir, get you in: I will not long be troubled with you; you shall have some part of your will: I pray you, leave me. ORLANDO I will no further offend you than becomes me for my good. OLIVER Get you with him, you old dog. ADAM Is 'old dog' my reward? Most true, I have lost my teeth in your service. God be with my old master! he would not have spoke such a word. [Exeunt ORLANDO and ADAM] OLIVER Is it even so? begin you to grow upon me? I will physic your rankness, and yet give no thousand crowns neither. Holla, Dennis! [Enter DENNIS] DENNIS Calls your worship? OLIVER Was not Charles, the duke's wrestler, here to speak with me? DENNIS So please you, he is here at the door and importunes access to you. OLIVER Call him in. [Exit DENNIS] 'Twill be a good way; and to-morrow the wrestling is. [Enter CHARLES] CHARLES Good morrow to your worship. OLIVER Good Monsieur Charles, what's the new news at the new court? CHARLES There's no news at the court, sir, but the old news: that is, the old duke is banished by his younger brother the new duke; and three or four loving lords have put themselves into voluntary exile with him, whose lands and revenues enrich the new duke; therefore he gives them good leave to wander. OLIVER Can you tell if Rosalind, the duke's daughter, be banished with her father? CHARLES O, no; for the duke's daughter, her cousin, so loves her, being ever from their cradles bred together, that she would have followed her exile, or have died to stay behind her. She is at the court, and no less beloved of her uncle than his own daughter; and never two ladies loved as they do. OLIVER Where will the old duke live? CHARLES They say he is already in the forest of Arden, and a many merry men with him; and there they live like the old Robin Hood of England: they say many young gentlemen flock to him every day, and fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the golden world. OLIVER What, you wrestle to-morrow before the new duke? CHARLES Marry, do I, sir; and I came to acquaint you with a matter. I am given, sir, secretly to understand that your younger brother Orlando hath a disposition to come in disguised against me to try a fall. To-morrow, sir, I wrestle for my credit; and he that escapes me without some broken limb shall acquit him well. Your brother is but young and tender; and, for your love, I would be loath to foil him, as I must, for my own honour, if he come in: therefore, out of my love to you, I came hither to acquaint you withal, that either you might stay him from his intendment or brook such disgrace well as he shall run into, in that it is a thing of his own search and altogether against my will. OLIVER Charles, I thank thee for thy love to me, which thou shalt find I will most kindly requite. I had myself notice of my brother's purpose herein and have by underhand means laboured to dissuade him from it, but he is resolute. I'll tell thee, Charles: it is the stubbornest young fellow of France, full of ambition, an envious emulator of every man's good parts, a secret and villanous contriver against me his natural brother: therefore use thy discretion; I had as lief thou didst break his neck as his finger. And thou wert best look to't; for if thou dost him any slight disgrace or if he do not mightily grace himself on thee, he will practise against thee by poison, entrap thee by some treacherous device and never leave thee till he hath ta'en thy life by some indirect means or other; for, I assure thee, and almost with tears I speak it, there is not one so young and so villanous this day living. I speak but brotherly of him; but should I anatomize him to thee as he is, I must blush and weep and thou must look pale and wonder. CHARLES I am heartily glad I came hither to you. If he come to-morrow, I'll give him his payment: if ever he go alone again, I'll never wrestle for prize more: and so God keep your worship! OLIVER Farewell, good Charles. [Exit CHARLES] Now will I stir this gamester: I hope I shall see an end of him; for my soul, yet I know not why, hates nothing more than he. Yet he's gentle, never schooled and yet learned, full of noble device, of all sorts enchantingly beloved, and indeed so much in the heart of the world, and especially of my own people, who best know him, that I am altogether misprised: but it shall not be so long; this wrestler shall clear all: nothing remains but that I kindle the boy thither; which now I'll go about. [Exit] AS YOU LIKE IT ACT I SCENE II Lawn before the Duke's palace. [Enter CELIA and ROSALIND] CELIA I pray thee, Rosalind, sweet my coz, be merry. ROSALIND Dear Celia, I show more mirth than I am mistress of; and would you yet I were merrier? Unless you could teach me to forget a banished father, you must not learn me how to remember any extraordinary pleasure. CELIA Herein I see thou lovest me not with the full weight that I love thee. If my uncle, thy banished father, had banished thy uncle, the duke my father, so thou hadst been still with me, I could have taught my love to take thy father for mine: so wouldst thou, if the truth of thy love to me were so righteously tempered as mine is to thee. ROSALIND Well, I will forget the condition of my estate, to rejoice in yours. CELIA You know my father hath no child but I, nor none is like to have: and, truly, when he dies, thou shalt be his heir, for what he hath taken away from thy father perforce, I will render thee again in affection; by mine honour, I will; and when I break that oath, let me turn monster: therefore, my sweet Rose, my dear Rose, be merry. ROSALIND From henceforth I will, coz, and devise sports. Let me see; what think you of falling in love? CELIA Marry, I prithee, do, to make sport withal: but love no man in good earnest; nor no further in sport neither than with safety of a pure blush thou mayst in honour come off again. ROSALIND What shall be our sport, then? CELIA Let us sit and mock the good housewife Fortune from her wheel, that her gifts may henceforth be bestowed equally. ROSALIND I would we could do so, for her benefits are mightily misplaced, and the bountiful blind woman doth most mistake in her gifts to women. CELIA 'Tis true; for those that she makes fair she scarce makes honest, and those that she makes honest she makes very ill-favouredly. ROSALIND Nay, now thou goest from Fortune's office to Nature's: Fortune reigns in gifts of the world, not in the lineaments of Nature. [Enter TOUCHSTONE] CELIA No? when Nature hath made a fair creature, may she not by Fortune fall into the fire? Though Nature hath given us wit to flout at Fortune, hath not Fortune sent in this fool to cut off the argument? ROSALIND Indeed, there is Fortune too hard for Nature, when Fortune makes Nature's natural the cutter-off of Nature's wit. CELIA Peradventure this is not Fortune's work neither, but Nature's; who perceiveth our natural wits too dull to reason of such goddesses and hath sent this natural for our whetstone; for always the dulness of the fool is the whetstone of the wits. How now, wit! whither wander you? TOUCHSTONE Mistress, you must come away to your father. CELIA Were you made the messenger? TOUCHSTONE No, by mine honour, but I was bid to come for you. ROSALIND Where learned you that oath, fool? TOUCHSTONE Of a certain knight that swore by his honour they were good pancakes and swore by his honour the mustard was naught: now I'll stand to it, the pancakes were naught and the mustard was good, and yet was not the knight forsworn. CELIA How prove you that, in the great heap of your knowledge? ROSALIND Ay, marry, now unmuzzle your wisdom. TOUCHSTONE Stand you both forth now: stroke your chins, and swear by your beards that I am a knave. CELIA By our beards, if we had them, thou art. TOUCHSTONE By my knavery, if I had it, then I were; but if you swear by that that is not, you are not forsworn: no more was this knight swearing by his honour, for he never had any; or if he had, he had sworn it away before ever he saw those pancakes or that mustard. CELIA Prithee, who is't that thou meanest? TOUCHSTONE One that old Frederick, your father, loves. CELIA My father's love is enough to honour him: enough! speak no more of him; you'll be whipped for taxation one of these days. TOUCHSTONE The more pity, that fools may not speak wisely what wise men do foolishly. CELIA By my troth, thou sayest true; for since the little wit that fools have was silenced, the little foolery that wise men have makes a great show. Here comes Monsieur Le Beau. ROSALIND With his mouth full of news. CELIA Which he will put on us, as pigeons feed their young. ROSALIND Then shall we be news-crammed. CELIA All the better; we shall be the more marketable. [Enter LE BEAU] Bon jour, Monsieur Le Beau: what's the news? LE BEAU Fair princess, you have lost much good sport. CELIA Sport! of what colour? LE BEAU What colour, madam! how shall I answer you? ROSALIND As wit and fortune will. TOUCHSTONE Or as the Destinies decree. CELIA Well said: that was laid on with a trowel. TOUCHSTONE Nay, if I keep not my rank,-- ROSALIND Thou losest thy old smell. LE BEAU You amaze me, ladies: I would have told you of good wrestling, which you have lost the sight of. ROSALIND You tell us the manner of the wrestling. LE BEAU I will tell you the beginning; and, if it please your ladyships, you may see the end; for the best is yet to do; and here, where you are, they are coming to perform it. CELIA Well, the beginning, that is dead and buried. LE BEAU There comes an old man and his three sons,-- CELIA I could match this beginning with an old tale. LE BEAU Three proper young men, of excellent growth and presence. ROSALIND With bills on their necks, 'Be it known unto all men by these presents.' LE BEAU The eldest of the three wrestled with Charles, the duke's wrestler; which Charles in a moment threw him and broke three of his ribs, that there is little hope of life in him: so he served the second, and so the third. Yonder they lie; the poor old man, their father, making such pitiful dole over them that all the beholders take his part with weeping. ROSALIND Alas! TOUCHSTONE But what is the sport, monsieur, that the ladies have lost? LE BEAU Why, this that I speak of. TOUCHSTONE Thus men may grow wiser every day: it is the first time that ever I heard breaking of ribs was sport for ladies. CELIA Or I, I promise thee. ROSALIND But is there any else longs to see this broken music in his sides? is there yet another dotes upon rib-breaking? Shall we see this wrestling, cousin? LE BEAU You must, if you stay here; for here is the place appointed for the wrestling, and they are ready to perform it. CELIA Yonder, sure, they are coming: let us now stay and see it. [Flourish. Enter DUKE FREDERICK, Lords, ORLANDO, CHARLES, and Attendants] DUKE FREDERICK Come on: since the youth will not be entreated, his own peril on his forwardness. ROSALIND Is yonder the man? LE BEAU Even he, madam. CELIA Alas, he is too young! yet he looks successfully. DUKE FREDERICK How now, daughter and cousin! are you crept hither to see the wrestling? ROSALIND Ay, my liege, so please you give us leave. DUKE FREDERICK You will take little delight in it, I can tell you; there is such odds in the man. In pity of the challenger's youth I would fain dissuade him, but he will not be entreated. Speak to him, ladies; see if you can move him. CELIA Call him hither, good Monsieur Le Beau. DUKE FREDERICK Do so: I'll not be by. LE BEAU Monsieur the challenger, the princesses call for you. ORLANDO I attend them with all respect and duty. ROSALIND Young man, have you challenged Charles the wrestler? ORLANDO No, fair princess; he is the general challenger: I come but in, as others do, to try with him the strength of my youth. CELIA Young gentleman, your spirits are too bold for your years. You have seen cruel proof of this man's strength: if you saw yourself with your eyes or knew yourself with your judgment, the fear of your adventure would counsel you to a more equal enterprise. We pray you, for your own sake, to embrace your own safety and give over this attempt. ROSALIND Do, young sir; your reputation shall not therefore be misprised: we will make it our suit to the duke that the wrestling might not go forward. ORLANDO I beseech you, punish me not with your hard thoughts; wherein I confess me much guilty, to deny so fair and excellent ladies any thing. But let your fair eyes and gentle wishes go with me to my trial: wherein if I be foiled, there is but one shamed that was never gracious; if killed, but one dead that was willing to be so: I shall do my friends no wrong, for I have none to lament me, the world no injury, for in it I have nothing; only in the world I fill up a place, which may be better supplied when I have made it empty. ROSALIND The little strength that I have, I would it were with you. CELIA And mine, to eke out hers. ROSALIND Fare you well: pray heaven I be deceived in you! CELIA Your heart's desires be with you! CHARLES Come, where is this young gallant that is so desirous to lie with his mother earth? ORLANDO Ready, sir; but his will hath in it a more modest working. DUKE FREDERICK You shall try but one fall. CHARLES No, I warrant your grace, you shall not entreat him to a second, that have so mightily persuaded him from a first. ORLANDO An you mean to mock me after, you should not have mocked me before: but come your ways. ROSALIND Now Hercules be thy speed, young man! CELIA I would I were invisible, to catch the strong fellow by the leg. [They wrestle] ROSALIND O excellent young man! CELIA If I had a thunderbolt in mine eye, I can tell who should down. [Shout. CHARLES is thrown] DUKE FREDERICK No more, no more. ORLANDO Yes, I beseech your grace: I am not yet well breathed. DUKE FREDERICK How dost thou, Charles? LE BEAU He cannot speak, my lord. DUKE FREDERICK Bear him away. What is thy name, young man? ORLANDO Orlando, my liege; the youngest son of Sir Rowland de Boys. DUKE FREDERICK I would thou hadst been son to some man else: The world esteem'd thy father honourable, But I did find him still mine enemy: Thou shouldst have better pleased me with this deed, Hadst thou descended from another house. But fare thee well; thou art a gallant youth: I would thou hadst told me of another father. [Exeunt DUKE FREDERICK, train, and LE BEAU] CELIA Were I my father, coz, would I do this? ORLANDO I am more proud to be Sir Rowland's son, His youngest son; and would not change that calling, To be adopted heir to Frederick. ROSALIND My father loved Sir Rowland as his soul, And all the world was of my father's mind: Had I before known this young man his son, I should have given him tears unto entreaties, Ere he should thus have ventured. CELIA Gentle cousin, Let us go thank him and encourage him: My father's rough and envious disposition Sticks me at heart. Sir, you have well deserved: If you do keep your promises in love But justly, as you have exceeded all promise, Your mistress shall be happy. ROSALIND Gentleman, [Giving him a chain from her neck] Wear this for me, one out of suits with fortune, That could give more, but that her hand lacks means. Shall we go, coz? CELIA Ay. Fare you well, fair gentleman. ORLANDO Can I not say, I thank you? My better parts Are all thrown down, and that which here stands up Is but a quintain, a mere lifeless block. ROSALIND He calls us back: my pride fell with my fortunes; I'll ask him what he would. Did you call, sir? Sir, you have wrestled well and overthrown More than your enemies. CELIA Will you go, coz? ROSALIND Have with you. Fare you well. [Exeunt ROSALIND and CELIA] ORLANDO What passion hangs these weights upon my tongue? I cannot speak to her, yet she urged conference. O poor Orlando, thou art overthrown! Or Charles or something weaker masters thee. [Re-enter LE BEAU] LE BEAU Good sir, I do in friendship counsel you To leave this place. Albeit you have deserved High commendation, true applause and love, Yet such is now the duke's condition That he misconstrues all that you have done. The duke is humorous; what he is indeed, More suits you to conceive than I to speak of. ORLANDO I thank you, sir: and, pray you, tell me this: Which of the two was daughter of the duke That here was at the wrestling? LE BEAU Neither his daughter, if we judge by manners; But yet indeed the lesser is his daughter The other is daughter to the banish'd duke, And here detain'd by her usurping uncle, To keep his daughter company; whose loves Are dearer than the natural bond of sisters. But I can tell you that of late this duke Hath ta'en displeasure 'gainst his gentle niece, Grounded upon no other argument But that the people praise her for her virtues And pity her for her good father's sake; And, on my life, his malice 'gainst the lady Will suddenly break forth. Sir, fare you well: Hereafter, in a better world than this, I shall desire more love and knowledge of you. ORLANDO I rest much bounden to you: fare you well. [Exit LE BEAU] Thus must I from the smoke into the smother; From tyrant duke unto a tyrant brother: But heavenly Rosalind! [Exit] AS YOU LIKE IT ACT I SCENE III A room in the palace. [Enter CELIA and ROSALIND] CELIA Why, cousin! why, Rosalind! Cupid have mercy! not a word? ROSALIND Not one to throw at a dog. CELIA No, thy words are too precious to be cast away upon curs; throw some of them at me; come, lame me with reasons. ROSALIND Then there were two cousins laid up; when the one should be lamed with reasons and the other mad without any. CELIA But is all this for your father? ROSALIND No, some of it is for my child's father. O, how full of briers is this working-day world! CELIA They are but burs, cousin, thrown upon thee in holiday foolery: if we walk not in the trodden paths our very petticoats will catch them. ROSALIND I could shake them off my coat: these burs are in my heart. CELIA Hem them away. ROSALIND I would try, if I could cry 'hem' and have him. CELIA Come, come, wrestle with thy affections. ROSALIND O, they take the part of a better wrestler than myself! CELIA O, a good wish upon you! you will try in time, in despite of a fall. But, turning these jests out of service, let us talk in good earnest: is it possible, on such a sudden, you should fall into so strong a liking with old Sir Rowland's youngest son? ROSALIND The duke my father loved his father dearly. CELIA Doth it therefore ensue that you should love his son dearly? By this kind of chase, I should hate him, for my father hated his father dearly; yet I hate not Orlando. ROSALIND No, faith, hate him not, for my sake. CELIA Why should I not? doth he not deserve well? ROSALIND Let me love him for that, and do you love him because I do. Look, here comes the duke. CELIA With his eyes full of anger. [Enter DUKE FREDERICK, with Lords] DUKE FREDERICK Mistress, dispatch you with your safest haste And get you from our court. ROSALIND Me, uncle? DUKE FREDERICK You, cousin Within these ten days if that thou be'st found So near our public court as twenty miles, Thou diest for it. ROSALIND I do beseech your grace, Let me the knowledge of my fault bear with me: If with myself I hold intelligence Or have acquaintance with mine own desires, If that I do not dream or be not frantic,-- As I do trust I am not--then, dear uncle, Never so much as in a thought unborn Did I offend your highness. DUKE FREDERICK Thus do all traitors: If their purgation did consist in words, They are as innocent as grace itself: Let it suffice thee that I trust thee not. ROSALIND Yet your mistrust cannot make me a traitor: Tell me whereon the likelihood depends. DUKE FREDERICK Thou art thy father's daughter; there's enough. ROSALIND So was I when your highness took his dukedom; So was I when your highness banish'd him: Treason is not inherited, my lord; Or, if we did derive it from our friends, What's that to me? my father was no traitor: Then, good my liege, mistake me not so much To think my poverty is treacherous. CELIA Dear sovereign, hear me speak. DUKE FREDERICK Ay, Celia; we stay'd her for your sake, Else had she with her father ranged along. CELIA I did not then entreat to have her stay; It was your pleasure and your own remorse: I was too young that time to value her; But now I know her: if she be a traitor, Why so am I; we still have slept together, Rose at an instant, learn'd, play'd, eat together, And wheresoever we went, like Juno's swans, Still we went coupled and inseparable. DUKE FREDERICK She is too subtle for thee; and her smoothness, Her very silence and her patience Speak to the people, and they pity her. Thou art a fool: she robs thee of thy name; And thou wilt show more bright and seem more virtuous When she is gone. Then open not thy lips: Firm and irrevocable is my doom Which I have pass'd upon her; she is banish'd. CELIA Pronounce that sentence then on me, my liege: I cannot live out of her company. DUKE FREDERICK You are a fool. You, niece, provide yourself: If you outstay the time, upon mine honour, And in the greatness of my word, you die. [Exeunt DUKE FREDERICK and Lords] CELIA O my poor Rosalind, whither wilt thou go? Wilt thou change fathers? I will give thee mine. I charge thee, be not thou more grieved than I am. ROSALIND I have more cause. CELIA Thou hast not, cousin; Prithee be cheerful: know'st thou not, the duke Hath banish'd me, his daughter? ROSALIND That he hath not. CELIA No, hath not? Rosalind lacks then the love Which teacheth thee that thou and I am one: Shall we be sunder'd? shall we part, sweet girl? No: let my father seek another heir. Therefore devise with me how we may fly, Whither to go and what to bear with us; And do not seek to take your change upon you, To bear your griefs yourself and leave me out; For, by this heaven, now at our sorrows pale, Say what thou canst, I'll go along with thee. ROSALIND Why, whither shall we go? CELIA To seek my uncle in the forest of Arden. ROSALIND Alas, what danger will it be to us, Maids as we are, to travel forth so far! Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold. CELIA I'll put myself in poor and mean attire And with a kind of umber smirch my face; The like do you: so shall we pass along And never stir assailants. ROSALIND Were it not better, Because that I am more than common tall, That I did suit me all points like a man? A gallant curtle-axe upon my thigh, A boar-spear in my hand; and--in my heart Lie there what hidden woman's fear there will-- We'll have a swashing and a martial outside, As many other mannish cowards have That do outface it with their semblances. CELIA What shall I call thee when thou art a man? ROSALIND I'll have no worse a name than Jove's own page; And therefore look you call me Ganymede. But what will you be call'd? CELIA Something that hath a reference to my state No longer Celia, but Aliena. ROSALIND But, cousin, what if we assay'd to steal The clownish fool out of your father's court? Would he not be a comfort to our travel? CELIA He'll go along o'er the wide world with me; Leave me alone to woo him. Let's away, And get our jewels and our wealth together, Devise the fittest time and safest way To hide us from pursuit that will be made After my flight. Now go we in content To liberty and not to banishment. [Exeunt] AS YOU LIKE IT ACT II SCENE I The Forest of Arden. [Enter DUKE SENIOR, AMIENS, and two or three Lords, like foresters] DUKE SENIOR Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile, Hath not old custom made this life more sweet Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods More free from peril than the envious court? Here feel we but the penalty of Adam, The seasons' difference, as the icy fang And churlish chiding of the winter's wind, Which, when it bites and blows upon my body, Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say 'This is no flattery: these are counsellors That feelingly persuade me what I am.' Sweet are the uses of adversity, Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head; And this our life exempt from public haunt Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones and good in every thing. I would not change it. AMIENS Happy is your grace, That can translate the stubbornness of fortune Into so quiet and so sweet a style. DUKE SENIOR Come, shall we go and kill us venison? And yet it irks me the poor dappled fools, Being native burghers of this desert city, Should in their own confines with forked heads Have their round haunches gored. First Lord Indeed, my lord, The melancholy Jaques grieves at that, And, in that kind, swears you do more usurp Than doth your brother that hath banish'd you. To-day my Lord of Amiens and myself Did steal behind him as he lay along Under an oak whose antique root peeps out Upon the brook that brawls along this wood: To the which place a poor sequester'd stag, That from the hunter's aim had ta'en a hurt, Did come to languish, and indeed, my lord, The wretched animal heaved forth such groans That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat Almost to bursting, and the big round tears Coursed one another down his innocent nose In piteous chase; and thus the hairy fool Much marked of the melancholy Jaques, Stood on the extremest verge of the swift brook, Augmenting it with tears. DUKE SENIOR But what said Jaques? Did he not moralize this spectacle? First Lord O, yes, into a thousand similes. First, for his weeping into the needless stream; 'Poor deer,' quoth he, 'thou makest a testament As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more To that which had too much:' then, being there alone, Left and abandon'd of his velvet friends, ''Tis right:' quoth he; 'thus misery doth part The flux of company:' anon a careless herd, Full of the pasture, jumps along by him And never stays to greet him; 'Ay' quoth Jaques, 'Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens; 'Tis just the fashion: wherefore do you look Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there?' Thus most invectively he pierceth through The body of the country, city, court, Yea, and of this our life, swearing that we Are mere usurpers, tyrants and what's worse, To fright the animals and to kill them up In their assign'd and native dwelling-place. DUKE SENIOR And did you leave him in this contemplation? Second Lord We did, my lord, weeping and commenting Upon the sobbing deer. DUKE SENIOR Show me the place: I love to cope him in these sullen fits, For then he's full of matter. First Lord I'll bring you to him straight. [Exeunt] AS YOU LIKE IT ACT II SCENE II A room in the palace. [Enter DUKE FREDERICK, with Lords] DUKE FREDERICK Can it be possible that no man saw them? It cannot be: some villains of my court Are of consent and sufferance in this. First Lord I cannot hear of any that did see her. The ladies, her attendants of her chamber, Saw her abed, and in the morning early They found the bed untreasured of their mistress. Second Lord My lord, the roynish clown, at whom so oft Your grace was wont to laugh, is also missing. Hisperia, the princess' gentlewoman, Confesses that she secretly o'erheard Your daughter and her cousin much commend The parts and graces of the wrestler That did but lately foil the sinewy Charles; And she believes, wherever they are gone, That youth is surely in their company. DUKE FREDERICK Send to his brother; fetch that gallant hither; If he be absent, bring his brother to me; I'll make him find him: do this suddenly, And let not search and inquisition quail To bring again these foolish runaways. [Exeunt] AS YOU LIKE IT ACT II SCENE III Before OLIVER'S house. [Enter ORLANDO and ADAM, meeting] ORLANDO Who's there? ADAM What, my young master? O, my gentle master! O my sweet master! O you memory Of old Sir Rowland! why, what make you here? Why are you virtuous? why do people love you? And wherefore are you gentle, strong and valiant? Why would you be so fond to overcome The bonny priser of the humorous duke? Your praise is come too swiftly home before you. Know you not, master, to some kind of men Their graces serve them but as enemies? No more do yours: your virtues, gentle master, Are sanctified and holy traitors to you. O, what a world is this, when what is comely Envenoms him that bears it! ORLANDO Why, what's the matter? ADAM O unhappy youth! Come not within these doors; within this roof The enemy of all your graces lives: Your brother--no, no brother; yet the son-- Yet not the son, I will not call him son Of him I was about to call his father-- Hath heard your praises, and this night he means To burn the lodging where you use to lie And you within it: if he fail of that, He will have other means to cut you off. I overheard him and his practises. This is no place; this house is but a butchery: Abhor it, fear it, do not enter it. ORLANDO Why, whither, Adam, wouldst thou have me go? ADAM No matter whither, so you come not here. ORLANDO What, wouldst thou have me go and beg my food? Or with a base and boisterous sword enforce A thievish living on the common road? This I must do, or know not what to do: Yet this I will not do, do how I can; I rather will subject me to the malice Of a diverted blood and bloody brother. ADAM But do not so. I have five hundred crowns, The thrifty hire I saved under your father, Which I did store to be my foster-nurse When service should in my old limbs lie lame And unregarded age in corners thrown: Take that, and He that doth the ravens feed, Yea, providently caters for the sparrow, Be comfort to my age! Here is the gold; And all this I give you. Let me be your servant: Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty; For in my youth I never did apply Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood, Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo The means of weakness and debility; Therefore my age is as a lusty winter, Frosty, but kindly: let me go with you; I'll do the service of a younger man In all your business and necessities. ORLANDO O good old man, how well in thee appears The constant service of the antique world, When service sweat for duty, not for meed! Thou art not for the fashion of these times, Where none will sweat but for promotion, And having that, do choke their service up Even with the having: it is not so with thee. But, poor old man, thou prunest a rotten tree, That cannot so much as a blossom yield In lieu of all thy pains and husbandry But come thy ways; well go along together, And ere we have thy youthful wages spent, We'll light upon some settled low content. ADAM Master, go on, and I will follow thee, To the last gasp, with truth and loyalty. From seventeen years till now almost fourscore Here lived I, but now live here no more. At seventeen years many their fortunes seek; But at fourscore it is too late a week: Yet fortune cannot recompense me better Than to die well and not my master's debtor. [Exeunt] AS YOU LIKE IT ACT II SCENE IV The Forest of Arden. [Enter ROSALIND for Ganymede, CELIA for Aliena, and TOUCHSTONE] ROSALIND O Jupiter, how weary are my spirits! TOUCHSTONE I care not for my spirits, if my legs were not weary. ROSALIND I could find in my heart to disgrace my man's apparel and to cry like a woman; but I must comfort the weaker vessel, as doublet and hose ought to show itself courageous to petticoat: therefore courage, good Aliena! CELIA I pray you, bear with me; I cannot go no further. TOUCHSTONE For my part, I had rather bear with you than bear you; yet I should bear no cross if I did bear you, for I think you have no money in your purse. ROSALIND Well, this is the forest of Arden. TOUCHSTONE Ay, now am I in Arden; the more fool I; when I was at home, I was in a better place: but travellers must be content. ROSALIND Ay, be so, good Touchstone. [Enter CORIN and SILVIUS] Look you, who comes here; a young man and an old in solemn talk. CORIN That is the way to make her scorn you still. SILVIUS O Corin, that thou knew'st how I do love her! CORIN I partly guess; for I have loved ere now. SILVIUS No, Corin, being old, thou canst not guess, Though in thy youth thou wast as true a lover As ever sigh'd upon a midnight pillow: But if thy love were ever like to mine-- As sure I think did never man love so-- How many actions most ridiculous Hast thou been drawn to by thy fantasy? CORIN Into a thousand that I have forgotten. SILVIUS O, thou didst then ne'er love so heartily! If thou remember'st not the slightest folly That ever love did make thee run into, Thou hast not loved: Or if thou hast not sat as I do now, Wearying thy hearer in thy mistress' praise, Thou hast not loved: Or if thou hast not broke from company Abruptly, as my passion now makes me, Thou hast not loved. O Phebe, Phebe, Phebe! [Exit] ROSALIND Alas, poor shepherd! searching of thy wound, I have by hard adventure found mine own. TOUCHSTONE And I mine. I remember, when I was in love I broke my sword upon a stone and bid him take that for coming a-night to Jane Smile; and I remember the kissing of her batlet and the cow's dugs that her pretty chopt hands had milked; and I remember the wooing of a peascod instead of her, from whom I took two cods and, giving her them again, said with weeping tears 'Wear these for my sake.' We that are true lovers run into strange capers; but as all is mortal in nature, so is all nature in love mortal in folly. ROSALIND Thou speakest wiser than thou art ware of. TOUCHSTONE Nay, I shall ne'er be ware of mine own wit till I break my shins against it. ROSALIND Jove, Jove! this shepherd's passion Is much upon my fashion. TOUCHSTONE And mine; but it grows something stale with me. CELIA I pray you, one of you question yond man If he for gold will give us any food: I faint almost to death. TOUCHSTONE Holla, you clown! ROSALIND Peace, fool: he's not thy kinsman. CORIN Who calls? TOUCHSTONE Your betters, sir. CORIN Else are they very wretched. ROSALIND Peace, I say. Good even to you, friend. CORIN And to you, gentle sir, and to you all. ROSALIND I prithee, shepherd, if that love or gold Can in this desert place buy entertainment, Bring us where we may rest ourselves and feed: Here's a young maid with travel much oppress'd And faints for succor. CORIN Fair sir, I pity her And wish, for her sake more than for mine own, My fortunes were more able to relieve her; But I am shepherd to another man And do not shear the fleeces that I graze: My master is of churlish disposition And little recks to find the way to heaven By doing deeds of hospitality: Besides, his cote, his flocks and bounds of feed Are now on sale, and at our sheepcote now, By reason of his absence, there is nothing That you will feed on; but what is, come see. And in my voice most welcome shall you be. ROSALIND What is he that shall buy his flock and pasture? CORIN That young swain that you saw here but erewhile, That little cares for buying any thing. ROSALIND I pray thee, if it stand with honesty, Buy thou the cottage, pasture and the flock, And thou shalt have to pay for it of us. CELIA And we will mend thy wages. I like this place. And willingly could waste my time in it. CORIN Assuredly the thing is to be sold: Go with me: if you like upon report The soil, the profit and this kind of life, I will your very faithful feeder be And buy it with your gold right suddenly. [Exeunt] AS YOU LIKE IT ACT II SCENE V The Forest. [Enter AMIENS, JAQUES, and others] SONG. AMIENS Under the greenwood tree Who loves to lie with me, And turn his merry note Unto the sweet bird's throat, Come hither, come hither, come hither: Here shall he see No enemy But winter and rough weather. JAQUES More, more, I prithee, more. AMIENS It will make you melancholy, Monsieur Jaques. JAQUES I thank it. More, I prithee, more. I can suck melancholy out of a song, as a weasel sucks eggs. More, I prithee, more. AMIENS My voice is ragged: I know I cannot please you. JAQUES I do not desire you to please me; I do desire you to sing. Come, more; another stanzo: call you 'em stanzos? AMIENS What you will, Monsieur Jaques. JAQUES Nay, I care not for their names; they owe me nothing. Will you sing? AMIENS More at your request than to please myself. JAQUES Well then, if ever I thank any man, I'll thank you; but that they call compliment is like the encounter of two dog-apes, and when a man thanks me heartily, methinks I have given him a penny and he renders me the beggarly thanks. Come, sing; and you that will not, hold your tongues. AMIENS Well, I'll end the song. Sirs, cover the while; the duke will drink under this tree. He hath been all this day to look you. JAQUES And I have been all this day to avoid him. He is too disputable for my company: I think of as many matters as he, but I give heaven thanks and make no boast of them. Come, warble, come. SONG. Who doth ambition shun [All together here] And loves to live i' the sun, Seeking the food he eats And pleased with what he gets, Come hither, come hither, come hither: Here shall he see No enemy But winter and rough weather. JAQUES I'll give you a verse to this note that I made yesterday in despite of my invention. AMIENS And I'll sing it. JAQUES Thus it goes:-- If it do come to pass That any man turn ass, Leaving his wealth and ease, A stubborn will to please, Ducdame, ducdame, ducdame: Here shall he see Gross fools as he, An if he will come to me. AMIENS What's that 'ducdame'? JAQUES 'Tis a Greek invocation, to call fools into a circle. I'll go sleep, if I can; if I cannot, I'll rail against all the first-born of Egypt. AMIENS And I'll go seek the duke: his banquet is prepared. [Exeunt severally] AS YOU LIKE IT ACT II SCENE VI The forest. [Enter ORLANDO and ADAM] ADAM Dear master, I can go no further. O, I die for food! Here lie I down, and measure out my grave. Farewell, kind master. ORLANDO Why, how now, Adam! no greater heart in thee? Live a little; comfort a little; cheer thyself a little. If this uncouth forest yield any thing savage, I will either be food for it or bring it for food to thee. Thy conceit is nearer death than thy powers. For my sake be comfortable; hold death awhile at the arm's end: I will here be with thee presently; and if I bring thee not something to eat, I will give thee leave to die: but if thou diest before I come, thou art a mocker of my labour. Well said! thou lookest cheerly, and I'll be with thee quickly. Yet thou liest in the bleak air: come, I will bear thee to some shelter; and thou shalt not die for lack of a dinner, if there live any thing in this desert. Cheerly, good Adam! [Exeunt] AS YOU LIKE IT ACT II SCENE VII The forest. [A table set out. Enter DUKE SENIOR, AMIENS, and Lords like outlaws] DUKE SENIOR I think he be transform'd into a beast; For I can no where find him like a man. First Lord My lord, he is but even now gone hence: Here was he merry, hearing of a song. DUKE SENIOR If he, compact of jars, grow musical, We shall have shortly discord in the spheres. Go, seek him: tell him I would speak with him. [Enter JAQUES] First Lord He saves my labour by his own approach. DUKE SENIOR Why, how now, monsieur! what a life is this, That your poor friends must woo your company? What, you look merrily! JAQUES A fool, a fool! I met a fool i' the forest, A motley fool; a miserable world! As I do live by food, I met a fool Who laid him down and bask'd him in the sun, And rail'd on Lady Fortune in good terms, In good set terms and yet a motley fool. 'Good morrow, fool,' quoth I. 'No, sir,' quoth he, 'Call me not fool till heaven hath sent me fortune:' And then he drew a dial from his poke, And, looking on it with lack-lustre eye, Says very wisely, 'It is ten o'clock: Thus we may see,' quoth he, 'how the world wags: 'Tis but an hour ago since it was nine, And after one hour more 'twill be eleven; And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe, And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot; And thereby hangs a tale.' When I did hear The motley fool thus moral on the time, My lungs began to crow like chanticleer, That fools should be so deep-contemplative, And I did laugh sans intermission An hour by his dial. O noble fool! A worthy fool! Motley's the only wear. DUKE SENIOR What fool is this? JAQUES O worthy fool! One that hath been a courtier, And says, if ladies be but young and fair, They have the gift to know it: and in his brain, Which is as dry as the remainder biscuit After a voyage, he hath strange places cramm'd With observation, the which he vents In mangled forms. O that I were a fool! I am ambitious for a motley coat. DUKE SENIOR Thou shalt have one. JAQUES It is my only suit; Provided that you weed your better judgments Of all opinion that grows rank in them That I am wise. I must have liberty Withal, as large a charter as the wind, To blow on whom I please; for so fools have; And they that are most galled with my folly, They most must laugh. And why, sir, must they so? The 'why' is plain as way to parish church: He that a fool doth very wisely hit Doth very foolishly, although he smart, Not to seem senseless of the bob: if not, The wise man's folly is anatomized Even by the squandering glances of the fool. Invest me in my motley; give me leave To speak my mind, and I will through and through Cleanse the foul body of the infected world, If they will patiently receive my medicine. DUKE SENIOR Fie on thee! I can tell what thou wouldst do. JAQUES What, for a counter, would I do but good? DUKE SENIOR Most mischievous foul sin, in chiding sin: For thou thyself hast been a libertine, As sensual as the brutish sting itself; And all the embossed sores and headed evils, That thou with licence of free foot hast caught, Wouldst thou disgorge into the general world. JAQUES Why, who cries out on pride, That can therein tax any private party? Doth it not flow as hugely as the sea, Till that the weary very means do ebb? What woman in the city do I name, When that I say the city-woman bears The cost of princes on unworthy shoulders? Who can come in and say that I mean her, When such a one as she such is her neighbour? Or what is he of basest function That says his bravery is not of my cost, Thinking that I mean him, but therein suits His folly to the mettle of my speech? There then; how then? what then? Let me see wherein My tongue hath wrong'd him: if it do him right, Then he hath wrong'd himself; if he be free, Why then my taxing like a wild-goose flies, Unclaim'd of any man. But who comes here? [Enter ORLANDO, with his sword drawn] ORLANDO Forbear, and eat no more. JAQUES Why, I have eat none yet. ORLANDO Nor shalt not, till necessity be served. JAQUES Of what kind should this cock come of? DUKE SENIOR Art thou thus bolden'd, man, by thy distress, Or else a rude despiser of good manners, That in civility thou seem'st so empty? ORLANDO You touch'd my vein at first: the thorny point Of bare distress hath ta'en from me the show Of smooth civility: yet am I inland bred And know some nurture. But forbear, I say: He dies that touches any of this fruit Till I and my affairs are answered. JAQUES An you will not be answered with reason, I must die. DUKE SENIOR What would you have? Your gentleness shall force More than your force move us to gentleness. ORLANDO I almost die for food; and let me have it. DUKE SENIOR Sit down and feed, and welcome to our table. ORLANDO Speak you so gently? Pardon me, I pray you: I thought that all things had been savage here; And therefore put I on the countenance Of stern commandment. But whate'er you are That in this desert inaccessible, Under the shade of melancholy boughs, Lose and neglect the creeping hours of time If ever you have look'd on better days, If ever been where bells have knoll'd to church, If ever sat at any good man's feast, If ever from your eyelids wiped a tear And know what 'tis to pity and be pitied, Let gentleness my strong enforcement be: In the which hope I blush, and hide my sword. DUKE SENIOR True is it that we have seen better days, And have with holy bell been knoll'd to church And sat at good men's feasts and wiped our eyes Of drops that sacred pity hath engender'd: And therefore sit you down in gentleness And take upon command what help we have That to your wanting may be minister'd. ORLANDO Then but forbear your food a little while, Whiles, like a doe, I go to find my fawn And give it food. There is an old poor man, Who after me hath many a weary step Limp'd in pure love: till he be first sufficed, Oppress'd with two weak evils, age and hunger, I will not touch a bit. DUKE SENIOR Go find him out, And we will nothing waste till you return. ORLANDO I thank ye; and be blest for your good comfort! [Exit] DUKE SENIOR Thou seest we are not all alone unhappy: This wide and universal theatre Presents more woeful pageants than the scene Wherein we play in. JAQUES All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms. And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier, Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard, Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice, In fair round belly with good capon lined, With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, Full of wise saws and modern instances; And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon, With spectacles on nose and pouch on side, His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, Turning again toward childish treble, pipes And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. [Re-enter ORLANDO, with ADAM] DUKE SENIOR Welcome. Set down your venerable burthen, And let him feed. ORLANDO I thank you most for him. ADAM So had you need: I scarce can speak to thank you for myself. DUKE SENIOR Welcome; fall to: I will not trouble you As yet, to question you about your fortunes. Give us some music; and, good cousin, sing. SONG. AMIENS Blow, blow, thou winter wind. Thou art not so unkind As man's ingratitude; Thy tooth is not so keen, Because thou art not seen, Although thy breath be rude. Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly: Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly: Then, heigh-ho, the holly! This life is most jolly. Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, That dost not bite so nigh As benefits forgot: Though thou the waters warp, Thy sting is not so sharp As friend remember'd not. Heigh-ho! sing, &c. DUKE SENIOR If that you were the good Sir Rowland's son, As you have whisper'd faithfully you were, And as mine eye doth his effigies witness Most truly limn'd and living in your face, Be truly welcome hither: I am the duke That loved your father: the residue of your fortune, Go to my cave and tell me. Good old man, Thou art right welcome as thy master is. Support him by the arm. Give me your hand, And let me all your fortunes understand. [Exeunt] AS YOU LIKE IT ACT III SCENE I A room in the palace. [Enter DUKE FREDERICK, Lords, and OLIVER] DUKE FREDERICK Not see him since? Sir, sir, that cannot be: But were I not the better part made mercy, I should not seek an absent argument Of my revenge, thou present. But look to it: Find out thy brother, wheresoe'er he is; Seek him with candle; bring him dead or living Within this twelvemonth, or turn thou no more To seek a living in our territory. Thy lands and all things that thou dost call thine Worth seizure do we seize into our hands, Till thou canst quit thee by thy brothers mouth Of what we think against thee. OLIVER O that your highness knew my heart in this! I never loved my brother in my life. DUKE FREDERICK More villain thou. Well, push him out of doors; And let my officers of such a nature Make an extent upon his house and lands: Do this expediently and turn him going. [Exeunt] AS YOU LIKE IT ACT III SCENE II The forest. [Enter ORLANDO, with a paper] ORLANDO Hang there, my verse, in witness of my love: And thou, thrice-crowned queen of night, survey With thy chaste eye, from thy pale sphere above, Thy huntress' name that my full life doth sway. O Rosalind! these trees shall be my books And in their barks my thoughts I'll character; That every eye which in this forest looks Shall see thy virtue witness'd every where. Run, run, Orlando; carve on every tree The fair, the chaste and unexpressive she. [Exit] [Enter CORIN and TOUCHSTONE] CORIN And how like you this shepherd's life, Master Touchstone? TOUCHSTONE Truly, shepherd, in respect of itself, it is a good life, but in respect that it is a shepherd's life, it is naught. In respect that it is solitary, I like it very well; but in respect that it is private, it is a very vile life. Now, in respect it is in the fields, it pleaseth me well; but in respect it is not in the court, it is tedious. As is it a spare life, look you, it fits my humour well; but as there is no more plenty in it, it goes much against my stomach. Hast any philosophy in thee, shepherd? CORIN No more but that I know the more one sickens the worse at ease he is; and that he that wants money, means and content is without three good friends; that the property of rain is to wet and fire to burn; that good pasture makes fat sheep, and that a great cause of the night is lack of the sun; that he that hath learned no wit by nature nor art may complain of good breeding or comes of a very dull kindred. TOUCHSTONE Such a one is a natural philosopher. Wast ever in court, shepherd? CORIN No, truly. TOUCHSTONE Then thou art damned. CORIN Nay, I hope. TOUCHSTONE Truly, thou art damned like an ill-roasted egg, all on one side. CORIN For not being at court? Your reason. TOUCHSTONE Why, if thou never wast at court, thou never sawest good manners; if thou never sawest good manners, then thy manners must be wicked; and wickedness is sin, and sin is damnation. Thou art in a parlous state, shepherd. CORIN Not a whit, Touchstone: those that are good manners at the court are as ridiculous in the country as the behavior of the country is most mockable at the court. You told me you salute not at the court, but you kiss your hands: that courtesy would be uncleanly, if courtiers were shepherds. TOUCHSTONE Instance, briefly; come, instance. CORIN Why, we are still handling our ewes, and their fells, you know, are greasy. TOUCHSTONE Why, do not your courtier's hands sweat? and is not the grease of a mutton as wholesome as the sweat of a man? Shallow, shallow. A better instance, I say; come. CORIN Besides, our hands are hard. TOUCHSTONE Your lips will feel them the sooner. Shallow again. A more sounder instance, come. CORIN And they are often tarred over with the surgery of our sheep: and would you have us kiss tar? The courtier's hands are perfumed with civet. TOUCHSTONE Most shallow man! thou worms-meat, in respect of a good piece of flesh indeed! Learn of the wise, and perpend: civet is of a baser birth than tar, the very uncleanly flux of a cat. Mend the instance, shepherd. CORIN You have too courtly a wit for me: I'll rest. TOUCHSTONE Wilt thou rest damned? God help thee, shallow man! God make incision in thee! thou art raw. CORIN Sir, I am a true labourer: I earn that I eat, get that I wear, owe no man hate, envy no man's happiness, glad of other men's good, content with my harm, and the greatest of my pride is to see my ewes graze and my lambs suck. TOUCHSTONE That is another simple sin in you, to bring the ewes and the rams together and to offer to get your living by the copulation of cattle; to be bawd to a bell-wether, and to betray a she-lamb of a twelvemonth to a crooked-pated, old, cuckoldly ram, out of all reasonable match. If thou beest not damned for this, the devil himself will have no shepherds; I cannot see else how thou shouldst 'scape. CORIN Here comes young Master Ganymede, my new mistress's brother. [Enter ROSALIND, with a paper, reading] ROSALIND From the east to western Ind, No jewel is like Rosalind. Her worth, being mounted on the wind, Through all the world bears Rosalind. All the pictures fairest lined Are but black to Rosalind. Let no fair be kept in mind But the fair of Rosalind. TOUCHSTONE I'll rhyme you so eight years together, dinners and suppers and sleeping-hours excepted: it is the right butter-women's rank to market. ROSALIND Out, fool! TOUCHSTONE For a taste: If a hart do lack a hind, Let him seek out Rosalind. If the cat will after kind, So be sure will Rosalind. Winter garments must be lined, So must slender Rosalind. They that reap must sheaf and bind; Then to cart with Rosalind. Sweetest nut hath sourest rind, Such a nut is Rosalind. He that sweetest rose will find Must find love's prick and Rosalind. This is the very false gallop of verses: why do you infect yourself with them? ROSALIND Peace, you dull fool! I found them on a tree. TOUCHSTONE Truly, the tree yields bad fruit. ROSALIND I'll graff it with you, and then I shall graff it with a medlar: then it will be the earliest fruit i' the country; for you'll be rotten ere you be half ripe, and that's the right virtue of the medlar. TOUCHSTONE You have said; but whether wisely or no, let the forest judge. [Enter CELIA, with a writing] ROSALIND Peace! Here comes my sister, reading: stand aside. CELIA [Reads] Why should this a desert be? For it is unpeopled? No: Tongues I'll hang on every tree, That shall civil sayings show: Some, how brief the life of man Runs his erring pilgrimage, That the stretching of a span Buckles in his sum of age; Some, of violated vows 'Twixt the souls of friend and friend: But upon the fairest boughs, Or at every sentence end, Will I Rosalinda write, Teaching all that read to know The quintessence of every sprite Heaven would in little show. Therefore Heaven Nature charged That one body should be fill'd With all graces wide-enlarged: Nature presently distill'd Helen's cheek, but not her heart, Cleopatra's majesty, Atalanta's better part, Sad Lucretia's modesty. Thus Rosalind of many parts By heavenly synod was devised, Of many faces, eyes and hearts, To have the touches dearest prized. Heaven would that she these gifts should have, And I to live and die her slave. ROSALIND O most gentle pulpiter! what tedious homily of love have you wearied your parishioners withal, and never cried 'Have patience, good people!' CELIA How now! back, friends! Shepherd, go off a little. Go with him, sirrah. TOUCHSTONE Come, shepherd, let us make an honourable retreat; though not with bag and baggage, yet with scrip and scrippage. [Exeunt CORIN and TOUCHSTONE] CELIA Didst thou hear these verses? ROSALIND O, yes, I heard them all, and more too; for some of them had in them more feet than the verses would bear. CELIA That's no matter: the feet might bear the verses. ROSALIND Ay, but the feet were lame and could not bear themselves without the verse and therefore stood lamely in the verse. CELIA But didst thou hear without wondering how thy name should be hanged and carved upon these trees? ROSALIND I was seven of the nine days out of the wonder before you came; for look here what I found on a palm-tree. I was never so be-rhymed since Pythagoras' time, that I was an Irish rat, which I can hardly remember. CELIA Trow you who hath done this? ROSALIND Is it a man? CELIA And a chain, that you once wore, about his neck. Change you colour? ROSALIND I prithee, who? CELIA O Lord, Lord! it is a hard matter for friends to meet; but mountains may be removed with earthquakes and so encounter. ROSALIND Nay, but who is it? CELIA Is it possible? ROSALIND Nay, I prithee now with most petitionary vehemence, tell me who it is. CELIA O wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful wonderful! and yet again wonderful, and after that, out of all hooping! ROSALIND Good my complexion! dost thou think, though I am caparisoned like a man, I have a doublet and hose in my disposition? One inch of delay more is a South-sea of discovery; I prithee, tell me who is it quickly, and speak apace. I would thou couldst stammer, that thou mightst pour this concealed man out of thy mouth, as wine comes out of a narrow- mouthed bottle, either too much at once, or none at all. I prithee, take the cork out of thy mouth that may drink thy tidings. CELIA So you may put a man in your belly. ROSALIND Is he of God's making? What manner of man? Is his head worth a hat, or his chin worth a beard? CELIA Nay, he hath but a little beard. ROSALIND Why, God will send more, if the man will be thankful: let me stay the growth of his beard, if thou delay me not the knowledge of his chin. CELIA It is young Orlando, that tripped up the wrestler's heels and your heart both in an instant. ROSALIND Nay, but the devil take mocking: speak, sad brow and true maid. CELIA I' faith, coz, 'tis he. ROSALIND Orlando? CELIA Orlando. ROSALIND Alas the day! what shall I do with my doublet and hose? What did he when thou sawest him? What said he? How looked he? Wherein went he? What makes him here? Did he ask for me? Where remains he? How parted he with thee? and when shalt thou see him again? Answer me in one word. CELIA You must borrow me Gargantua's mouth first: 'tis a word too great for any mouth of this age's size. To say ay and no to these particulars is more than to answer in a catechism. ROSALIND But doth he know that I am in this forest and in man's apparel? Looks he as freshly as he did the day he wrestled? CELIA It is as easy to count atomies as to resolve the propositions of a lover; but take a taste of my finding him, and relish it with good observance. I found him under a tree, like a dropped acorn. ROSALIND It may well be called Jove's tree, when it drops forth such fruit. CELIA Give me audience, good madam. ROSALIND Proceed. CELIA There lay he, stretched along, like a wounded knight. ROSALIND Though it be pity to see such a sight, it well becomes the ground. CELIA Cry 'holla' to thy tongue, I prithee; it curvets unseasonably. He was furnished like a hunter. ROSALIND O, ominous! he comes to kill my heart. CELIA I would sing my song without a burden: thou bringest me out of tune. ROSALIND Do you not know I am a woman? when I think, I must speak. Sweet, say on. CELIA You bring me out. Soft! comes he not here? [Enter ORLANDO and JAQUES] ROSALIND 'Tis he: slink by, and note him. JAQUES I thank you for your company; but, good faith, I had as lief have been myself alone. ORLANDO And so had I; but yet, for fashion sake, I thank you too for your society. JAQUES God be wi' you: let's meet as little as we can. ORLANDO I do desire we may be better strangers. JAQUES I pray you, mar no more trees with writing love-songs in their barks. ORLANDO I pray you, mar no more of my verses with reading them ill-favouredly. JAQUES Rosalind is your love's name? ORLANDO Yes, just. JAQUES I do not like her name. ORLANDO There was no thought of pleasing you when she was christened. JAQUES What stature is she of? ORLANDO Just as high as my heart. JAQUES You are full of pretty answers. Have you not been acquainted with goldsmiths' wives, and conned them out of rings? ORLANDO Not so; but I answer you right painted cloth, from whence you have studied your questions. JAQUES You have a nimble wit: I think 'twas made of Atalanta's heels. Will you sit down with me? and we two will rail against our mistress the world and all our misery. ORLANDO I will chide no breather in the world but myself, against whom I know most faults. JAQUES The worst fault you have is to be in love. ORLANDO 'Tis a fault I will not change for your best virtue. I am weary of you. JAQUES By my troth, I was seeking for a fool when I found you. ORLANDO He is drowned in the brook: look but in, and you shall see him. JAQUES There I shall see mine own figure. ORLANDO Which I take to be either a fool or a cipher. JAQUES I'll tarry no longer with you: farewell, good Signior Love. ORLANDO I am glad of your departure: adieu, good Monsieur Melancholy. [Exit JAQUES] ROSALIND [Aside to CELIA] I will speak to him, like a saucy lackey and under that habit play the knave with him. Do you hear, forester? ORLANDO Very well: what would you? ROSALIND I pray you, what is't o'clock? ORLANDO You should ask me what time o' day: there's no clock in the forest. ROSALIND Then there is no true lover in the forest; else sighing every minute and groaning every hour would detect the lazy foot of Time as well as a clock. ORLANDO And why not the swift foot of Time? had not that been as proper? ROSALIND By no means, sir: Time travels in divers paces with divers persons. I'll tell you who Time ambles withal, who Time trots withal, who Time gallops withal and who he stands still withal. ORLANDO I prithee, who doth he trot withal? ROSALIND Marry, he trots hard with a young maid between the contract of her marriage and the day it is solemnized: if the interim be but a se'nnight, Time's pace is so hard that it seems the length of seven year. ORLANDO Who ambles Time withal? ROSALIND With a priest that lacks Latin and a rich man that hath not the gout, for the one sleeps easily because he cannot study, and the other lives merrily because he feels no pain, the one lacking the burden of lean and wasteful learning, the other knowing no burden of heavy tedious penury; these Time ambles withal. ORLANDO Who doth he gallop withal? ROSALIND With a thief to the gallows, for though he go as softly as foot can fall, he thinks himself too soon there. ORLANDO Who stays it still withal? ROSALIND With lawyers in the vacation, for they sleep between term and term and then they perceive not how Time moves. ORLANDO Where dwell you, pretty youth? ROSALIND With this shepherdess, my sister; here in the skirts of the forest, like fringe upon a petticoat. ORLANDO Are you native of this place? ROSALIND As the cony that you see dwell where she is kindled. ORLANDO Your accent is something finer than you could purchase in so removed a dwelling. ROSALIND I have been told so of many: but indeed an old religious uncle of mine taught me to speak, who was in his youth an inland man; one that knew courtship too well, for there he fell in love. I have heard him read many lectures against it, and I thank God I am not a woman, to be touched with so many giddy offences as he hath generally taxed their whole sex withal. ORLANDO Can you remember any of the principal evils that he laid to the charge of women? ROSALIND There were none principal; they were all like one another as half-pence are, every one fault seeming monstrous till his fellow fault came to match it. ORLANDO I prithee, recount some of them. ROSALIND No, I will not cast away my physic but on those that are sick. There is a man haunts the forest, that abuses our young plants with carving 'Rosalind' on their barks; hangs odes upon hawthorns and elegies on brambles, all, forsooth, deifying the name of Rosalind: if I could meet that fancy-monger I would give him some good counsel, for he seems to have the quotidian of love upon him. ORLANDO I am he that is so love-shaked: I pray you tell me your remedy. ROSALIND There is none of my uncle's marks upon you: he taught me how to know a man in love; in which cage of rushes I am sure you are not prisoner. ORLANDO What were his marks? ROSALIND A lean cheek, which you have not, a blue eye and sunken, which you have not, an unquestionable spirit, which you have not, a beard neglected, which you have not; but I pardon you for that, for simply your having in beard is a younger brother's revenue: then your hose should be ungartered, your bonnet unbanded, your sleeve unbuttoned, your shoe untied and every thing about you demonstrating a careless desolation; but you are no such man; you are rather point-device in your accoutrements as loving yourself than seeming the lover of any other. ORLANDO Fair youth, I would I could make thee believe I love. ROSALIND Me believe it! you may as soon make her that you love believe it; which, I warrant, she is apter to do than to confess she does: that is one of the points in the which women still give the lie to their consciences. But, in good sooth, are you he that hangs the verses on the trees, wherein Rosalind is so admired? ORLANDO I swear to thee, youth, by the white hand of Rosalind, I am that he, that unfortunate he. ROSALIND But are you so much in love as your rhymes speak? ORLANDO Neither rhyme nor reason can express how much. ROSALIND Love is merely a madness, and, I tell you, deserves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do: and the reason why they are not so punished and cured is, that the lunacy is so ordinary that the whippers are in love too. Yet I profess curing it by counsel. ORLANDO Did you ever cure any so? ROSALIND Yes, one, and in this manner. He was to imagine me his love, his mistress; and I set him every day to woo me: at which time would I, being but a moonish youth, grieve, be effeminate, changeable, longing and liking, proud, fantastical, apish, shallow, inconstant, full of tears, full of smiles, for every passion something and for no passion truly any thing, as boys and women are for the most part cattle of this colour; would now like him, now loathe him; then entertain him, then forswear him; now weep for him, then spit at him; that I drave my suitor from his mad humour of love to a living humour of madness; which was, to forswear the full stream of the world, and to live in a nook merely monastic. And thus I cured him; and this way will I take upon me to wash your liver as clean as a sound sheep's heart, that there shall not be one spot of love in't. ORLANDO I would not be cured, youth. ROSALIND I would cure you, if you would but call me Rosalind and come every day to my cote and woo me. ORLANDO Now, by the faith of my love, I will: tell me where it is. ROSALIND Go with me to it and I'll show it you and by the way you shall tell me where in the forest you live. Will you go? ORLANDO With all my heart, good youth. ROSALIND Nay you must call me Rosalind. Come, sister, will you go? [Exeunt] AS YOU LIKE IT ACT III SCENE III The forest. [Enter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY; JAQUES behind] TOUCHSTONE Come apace, good Audrey: I will fetch up your goats, Audrey. And how, Audrey? am I the man yet? doth my simple feature content you? AUDREY Your features! Lord warrant us! what features! TOUCHSTONE I am here with thee and thy goats, as the most capricious poet, honest Ovid, was among the Goths. JAQUES [Aside] O knowledge ill-inhabited, worse than Jove in a thatched house! TOUCHSTONE When a man's verses cannot be understood, nor a man's good wit seconded with the forward child Understanding, it strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room. Truly, I would the gods had made thee poetical. AUDREY I do not know what 'poetical' is: is it honest in deed and word? is it a true thing? TOUCHSTONE No, truly; for the truest poetry is the most feigning; and lovers are given to poetry, and what they swear in poetry may be said as lovers they do feign. AUDREY Do you wish then that the gods had made me poetical? TOUCHSTONE I do, truly; for thou swearest to me thou art honest: now, if thou wert a poet, I might have some hope thou didst feign. AUDREY Would you not have me honest? TOUCHSTONE No, truly, unless thou wert hard-favoured; for honesty coupled to beauty is to have honey a sauce to sugar. JAQUES [Aside] A material fool! AUDREY Well, I am not fair; and therefore I pray the gods make me honest. TOUCHSTONE Truly, and to cast away honesty upon a foul slut were to put good meat into an unclean dish. AUDREY I am not a slut, though I thank the gods I am foul. TOUCHSTONE Well, praised be the gods for thy foulness! sluttishness may come hereafter. But be it as it may be, I will marry thee, and to that end I have been with Sir Oliver Martext, the vicar of the next village, who hath promised to meet me in this place of the forest and to couple us. JAQUES [Aside] I would fain see this meeting. AUDREY Well, the gods give us joy! TOUCHSTONE Amen. A man may, if he were of a fearful heart, stagger in this attempt; for here we have no temple but the wood, no assembly but horn-beasts. But what though? Courage! As horns are odious, they are necessary. It is said, 'many a man knows no end of his goods:' right; many a man has good horns, and knows no end of them. Well, that is the dowry of his wife; 'tis none of his own getting. Horns? Even so. Poor men alone? No, no; the noblest deer hath them as huge as the rascal. Is the single man therefore blessed? No: as a walled town is more worthier than a village, so is the forehead of a married man more honourable than the bare brow of a bachelor; and by how much defence is better than no skill, by so much is a horn more precious than to want. Here comes Sir Oliver. [Enter SIR OLIVER MARTEXT] Sir Oliver Martext, you are well met: will you dispatch us here under this tree, or shall we go with you to your chapel? SIR OLIVER MARTEXT Is there none here to give the woman? TOUCHSTONE I will not take her on gift of any man. SIR OLIVER MARTEXT Truly, she must be given, or the marriage is not lawful. JAQUES [Advancing] Proceed, proceed I'll give her. TOUCHSTONE Good even, good Master What-ye-call't: how do you, sir? You are very well met: God 'ild you for your last company: I am very glad to see you: even a toy in hand here, sir: nay, pray be covered. JAQUES Will you be married, motley? TOUCHSTONE As the ox hath his bow, sir, the horse his curb and the falcon her bells, so man hath his desires; and as pigeons bill, so wedlock would be nibbling. JAQUES And will you, being a man of your breeding, be married under a bush like a beggar? Get you to church, and have a good priest that can tell you what marriage is: this fellow will but join you together as they join wainscot; then one of you will prove a shrunk panel and, like green timber, warp, warp. TOUCHSTONE [Aside] I am not in the mind but I were better to be married of him than of another: for he is not like to marry me well; and not being well married, it will be a good excuse for me hereafter to leave my wife. JAQUES Go thou with me, and let me counsel thee. TOUCHSTONE 'Come, sweet Audrey: We must be married, or we must live in bawdry. Farewell, good Master Oliver: not,-- O sweet Oliver, O brave Oliver, Leave me not behind thee: but,-- Wind away, Begone, I say, I will not to wedding with thee. [Exeunt JAQUES, TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY] SIR OLIVER MARTEXT 'Tis no matter: ne'er a fantastical knave of them all shall flout me out of my calling. [Exit] AS YOU LIKE IT ACT III SCENE IV The forest. [Enter ROSALIND and CELIA] ROSALIND Never talk to me; I will weep. CELIA Do, I prithee; but yet have the grace to consider that tears do not become a man. ROSALIND But have I not cause to weep? CELIA As good cause as one would desire; therefore weep. ROSALIND His very hair is of the dissembling colour. CELIA Something browner than Judas's marry, his kisses are Judas's own children. ROSALIND I' faith, his hair is of a good colour. CELIA An excellent colour: your chestnut was ever the only colour. ROSALIND And his kissing is as full of sanctity as the touch of holy bread. CELIA He hath bought a pair of cast lips of Diana: a nun of winter's sisterhood kisses not more religiously; the very ice of chastity is in them. ROSALIND But why did he swear he would come this morning, and comes not? CELIA Nay, certainly, there is no truth in him. ROSALIND Do you think so? CELIA Yes; I think he is not a pick-purse nor a horse-stealer, but for his verity in love, I do think him as concave as a covered goblet or a worm-eaten nut. ROSALIND Not true in love? CELIA Yes, when he is in; but I think he is not in. ROSALIND You have heard him swear downright he was. CELIA 'Was' is not 'is:' besides, the oath of a lover is no stronger than the word of a tapster; they are both the confirmer of false reckonings. He attends here in the forest on the duke your father. ROSALIND I met the duke yesterday and had much question with him: he asked me of what parentage I was; I told him, of as good as he; so he laughed and let me go. But what talk we of fathers, when there is such a man as Orlando? CELIA O, that's a brave man! he writes brave verses, speaks brave words, swears brave oaths and breaks them bravely, quite traverse, athwart the heart of his lover; as a puisny tilter, that spurs his horse but on one side, breaks his staff like a noble goose: but all's brave that youth mounts and folly guides. Who comes here? [Enter CORIN] CORIN Mistress and master, you have oft inquired After the shepherd that complain'd of love, Who you saw sitting by me on the turf, Praising the proud disdainful shepherdess That was his mistress. CELIA Well, and what of him? CORIN If you will see a pageant truly play'd, Between the pale complexion of true love And the red glow of scorn and proud disdain, Go hence a little and I shall conduct you, If you will mark it. ROSALIND O, come, let us remove: The sight of lovers feedeth those in love. Bring us to this sight, and you shall say I'll prove a busy actor in their play. [Exeunt] AS YOU LIKE IT ACT III SCENE V Another part of the forest. [Enter SILVIUS and PHEBE] SILVIUS Sweet Phebe, do not scorn me; do not, Phebe; Say that you love me not, but say not so In bitterness. The common executioner, Whose heart the accustom'd sight of death makes hard, Falls not the axe upon the humbled neck But first begs pardon: will you sterner be Than he that dies and lives by bloody drops? [Enter ROSALIND, CELIA, and CORIN, behind] PHEBE I would not be thy executioner: I fly thee, for I would not injure thee. Thou tell'st me there is murder in mine eye: 'Tis pretty, sure, and very probable, That eyes, that are the frail'st and softest things, Who shut their coward gates on atomies, Should be call'd tyrants, butchers, murderers! Now I do frown on thee with all my heart; And if mine eyes can wound, now let them kill thee: Now counterfeit to swoon; why now fall down; Or if thou canst not, O, for shame, for shame, Lie not, to say mine eyes are murderers! Now show the wound mine eye hath made in thee: Scratch thee but with a pin, and there remains Some scar of it; lean but upon a rush, The cicatrice and capable impressure Thy palm some moment keeps; but now mine eyes, Which I have darted at thee, hurt thee not, Nor, I am sure, there is no force in eyes That can do hurt. SILVIUS O dear Phebe, If ever,--as that ever may be near,-- You meet in some fresh cheek the power of fancy, Then shall you know the wounds invisible That love's keen arrows make. PHEBE But till that time Come not thou near me: and when that time comes, Afflict me with thy mocks, pity me not; As till that time I shall not pity thee. ROSALIND And why, I pray you? Who might be your mother, That you insult, exult, and all at once, Over the wretched? What though you have no beauty,-- As, by my faith, I see no more in you Than without candle may go dark to bed-- Must you be therefore proud and pitiless? Why, what means this? Why do you look on me? I see no more in you than in the ordinary Of nature's sale-work. 'Od's my little life, I think she means to tangle my eyes too! No, faith, proud mistress, hope not after it: 'Tis not your inky brows, your black silk hair, Your bugle eyeballs, nor your cheek of cream, That can entame my spirits to your worship. You foolish shepherd, wherefore do you follow her, Like foggy south puffing with wind and rain? You are a thousand times a properer man Than she a woman: 'tis such fools as you That makes the world full of ill-favour'd children: 'Tis not her glass, but you, that flatters her; And out of you she sees herself more proper Than any of her lineaments can show her. But, mistress, know yourself: down on your knees, And thank heaven, fasting, for a good man's love: For I must tell you friendly in your ear, Sell when you can: you are not for all markets: Cry the man mercy; love him; take his offer: Foul is most foul, being foul to be a scoffer. So take her to thee, shepherd: fare you well. PHEBE Sweet youth, I pray you, chide a year together: I had rather hear you chide than this man woo. ROSALIND He's fallen in love with your foulness and she'll fall in love with my anger. If it be so, as fast as she answers thee with frowning looks, I'll sauce her with bitter words. Why look you so upon me? PHEBE For no ill will I bear you. ROSALIND I pray you, do not fall in love with me, For I am falser than vows made in wine: Besides, I like you not. If you will know my house, 'Tis at the tuft of olives here hard by. Will you go, sister? Shepherd, ply her hard. Come, sister. Shepherdess, look on him better, And be not proud: though all the world could see, None could be so abused in sight as he. Come, to our flock. [Exeunt ROSALIND, CELIA and CORIN] PHEBE Dead Shepherd, now I find thy saw of might, 'Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?' SILVIUS Sweet Phebe,-- PHEBE Ha, what say'st thou, Silvius? SILVIUS Sweet Phebe, pity me. PHEBE Why, I am sorry for thee, gentle Silvius. SILVIUS Wherever sorrow is, relief would be: If you do sorrow at my grief in love, By giving love your sorrow and my grief Were both extermined. PHEBE Thou hast my love: is not that neighbourly? SILVIUS I would have you. PHEBE Why, that were covetousness. Silvius, the time was that I hated thee, And yet it is not that I bear thee love; But since that thou canst talk of love so well, Thy company, which erst was irksome to me, I will endure, and I'll employ thee too: But do not look for further recompense Than thine own gladness that thou art employ'd. SILVIUS So holy and so perfect is my love, And I in such a poverty of grace, That I shall think it a most plenteous crop To glean the broken ears after the man That the main harvest reaps: loose now and then A scatter'd smile, and that I'll live upon. PHEBE Know'st now the youth that spoke to me erewhile? SILVIUS Not very well, but I have met him oft; And he hath bought the cottage and the bounds That the old carlot once was master of. PHEBE Think not I love him, though I ask for him: 'Tis but a peevish boy; yet he talks well; But what care I for words? yet words do well When he that speaks them pleases those that hear. It is a pretty youth: not very pretty: But, sure, he's proud, and yet his pride becomes him: He'll make a proper man: the best thing in him Is his complexion; and faster than his tongue Did make offence his eye did heal it up. He is not very tall; yet for his years he's tall: His leg is but so so; and yet 'tis well: There was a pretty redness in his lip, A little riper and more lusty red Than that mix'd in his cheek; 'twas just the difference Between the constant red and mingled damask. There be some women, Silvius, had they mark'd him In parcels as I did, would have gone near To fall in love with him; but, for my part, I love him not nor hate him not; and yet I have more cause to hate him than to love him: For what had he to do to chide at me? He said mine eyes were black and my hair black: And, now I am remember'd, scorn'd at me: I marvel why I answer'd not again: But that's all one; omittance is no quittance. I'll write to him a very taunting letter, And thou shalt bear it: wilt thou, Silvius? SILVIUS Phebe, with all my heart. PHEBE I'll write it straight; The matter's in my head and in my heart: I will be bitter with him and passing short. Go with me, Silvius. [Exeunt] AS YOU LIKE IT ACT IV SCENE I The forest. [Enter ROSALIND, CELIA, and JAQUES] JAQUES I prithee, pretty youth, let me be better acquainted with thee. ROSALIND They say you are a melancholy fellow. JAQUES I am so; I do love it better than laughing. ROSALIND Those that are in extremity of either are abominable fellows and betray themselves to every modern censure worse than drunkards. JAQUES Why, 'tis good to be sad and say nothing. ROSALIND Why then, 'tis good to be a post. JAQUES I have neither the scholar's melancholy, which is emulation, nor the musician's, which is fantastical, nor the courtier's, which is proud, nor the soldier's, which is ambitious, nor the lawyer's, which is politic, nor the lady's, which is nice, nor the lover's, which is all these: but it is a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, extracted from many objects, and indeed the sundry's contemplation of my travels, in which my often rumination wraps me m a most humorous sadness. ROSALIND A traveller! By my faith, you have great reason to be sad: I fear you have sold your own lands to see other men's; then, to have seen much and to have nothing, is to have rich eyes and poor hands. JAQUES Yes, I have gained my experience. ROSALIND And your experience makes you sad: I had rather have a fool to make me merry than experience to make me sad; and to travel for it too! [Enter ORLANDO] ORLANDO Good day and happiness, dear Rosalind! JAQUES Nay, then, God be wi' you, an you talk in blank verse. [Exit] ROSALIND Farewell, Monsieur Traveller: look you lisp and wear strange suits, disable all the benefits of your own country, be out of love with your nativity and almost chide God for making you that countenance you are, or I will scarce think you have swam in a gondola. Why, how now, Orlando! where have you been all this while? You a lover! An you serve me such another trick, never come in my sight more. ORLANDO My fair Rosalind, I come within an hour of my promise. ROSALIND Break an hour's promise in love! He that will divide a minute into a thousand parts and break but a part of the thousandth part of a minute in the affairs of love, it may be said of him that Cupid hath clapped him o' the shoulder, but I'll warrant him heart-whole. ORLANDO Pardon me, dear Rosalind. ROSALIND Nay, an you be so tardy, come no more in my sight: I had as lief be wooed of a snail. ORLANDO Of a snail? ROSALIND Ay, of a snail; for though he comes slowly, he carries his house on his head; a better jointure, I think, than you make a woman: besides he brings his destiny with him. ORLANDO What's that? ROSALIND Why, horns, which such as you are fain to be beholding to your wives for: but he comes armed in his fortune and prevents the slander of his wife. ORLANDO Virtue is no horn-maker; and my Rosalind is virtuous. ROSALIND And I am your Rosalind. CELIA It pleases him to call you so; but he hath a Rosalind of a better leer than you. ROSALIND Come, woo me, woo me, for now I am in a holiday humour and like enough to consent. What would you say to me now, an I were your very very Rosalind? ORLANDO I would kiss before I spoke. ROSALIND Nay, you were better speak first, and when you were gravelled for lack of matter, you might take occasion to kiss. Very good orators, when they are out, they will spit; and for lovers lacking--God warn us!--matter, the cleanliest shift is to kiss. ORLANDO How if the kiss be denied? ROSALIND Then she puts you to entreaty, and there begins new matter. ORLANDO Who could be out, being before his beloved mistress? ROSALIND Marry, that should you, if I were your mistress, or I should think my honesty ranker than my wit. ORLANDO What, of my suit? ROSALIND Not out of your apparel, and yet out of your suit. Am not I your Rosalind? ORLANDO I take some joy to say you are, because I would be talking of her. ROSALIND Well in her person I say I will not have you. ORLANDO Then in mine own person I die. ROSALIND No, faith, die by attorney. The poor world is almost six thousand years old, and in all this time there was not any man died in his own person, videlicit, in a love-cause. Troilus had his brains dashed out with a Grecian club; yet he did what he could to die before, and he is one of the patterns of love. Leander, he would have lived many a fair year, though Hero had turned nun, if it had not been for a hot midsummer night; for, good youth, he went but forth to wash him in the Hellespont and being taken with the cramp was drowned and the foolish coroners of that age found it was 'Hero of Sestos.' But these are all lies: men have died from time to time and worms have eaten them, but not for love. ORLANDO I would not have my right Rosalind of this mind, for, I protest, her frown might kill me. ROSALIND By this hand, it will not kill a fly. But come, now I will be your Rosalind in a more coming-on disposition, and ask me what you will. I will grant it. ORLANDO Then love me, Rosalind. ROSALIND Yes, faith, will I, Fridays and Saturdays and all. ORLANDO And wilt thou have me? ROSALIND Ay, and twenty such. ORLANDO What sayest thou? ROSALIND Are you not good? ORLANDO I hope so. ROSALIND Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing? Come, sister, you shall be the priest and marry us. Give me your hand, Orlando. What do you say, sister? ORLANDO Pray thee, marry us. CELIA I cannot say the words. ROSALIND You must begin, 'Will you, Orlando--' CELIA Go to. Will you, Orlando, have to wife this Rosalind? ORLANDO I will. ROSALIND Ay, but when? ORLANDO Why now; as fast as she can marry us. ROSALIND Then you must say 'I take thee, Rosalind, for wife.' ORLANDO I take thee, Rosalind, for wife. ROSALIND I might ask you for your commission; but I do take thee, Orlando, for my husband: there's a girl goes before the priest; and certainly a woman's thought runs before her actions. ORLANDO So do all thoughts; they are winged. ROSALIND Now tell me how long you would have her after you have possessed her. ORLANDO For ever and a day. ROSALIND Say 'a day,' without the 'ever.' No, no, Orlando; men are April when they woo, December when they wed: maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives. I will be more jealous of thee than a Barbary cock-pigeon over his hen, more clamorous than a parrot against rain, more new-fangled than an ape, more giddy in my desires than a monkey: I will weep for nothing, like Diana in the fountain, and I will do that when you are disposed to be merry; I will laugh like a hyen, and that when thou art inclined to sleep. ORLANDO But will my Rosalind do so? ROSALIND By my life, she will do as I do. ORLANDO O, but she is wise. ROSALIND Or else she could not have the wit to do this: the wiser, the waywarder: make the doors upon a woman's wit and it will out at the casement; shut that and 'twill out at the key-hole; stop that, 'twill fly with the smoke out at the chimney. ORLANDO A man that had a wife with such a wit, he might say 'Wit, whither wilt?' ROSALIND Nay, you might keep that cheque for it till you met your wife's wit going to your neighbour's bed. ORLANDO And what wit could wit have to excuse that? ROSALIND Marry, to say she came to seek you there. You shall never take her without her answer, unless you take her without her tongue. O, that woman that cannot make her fault her husband's occasion, let her never nurse her child herself, for she will breed it like a fool! ORLANDO For these two hours, Rosalind, I will leave thee. ROSALIND Alas! dear love, I cannot lack thee two hours. ORLANDO I must attend the duke at dinner: by two o'clock I will be with thee again. ROSALIND Ay, go your ways, go your ways; I knew what you would prove: my friends told me as much, and I thought no less: that flattering tongue of yours won me: 'tis but one cast away, and so, come, death! Two o'clock is your hour? ORLANDO Ay, sweet Rosalind. ROSALIND By my troth, and in good earnest, and so God mend me, and by all pretty oaths that are not dangerous, if you break one jot of your promise or come one minute behind your hour, I will think you the most pathetical break-promise and the most hollow lover and the most unworthy of her you call Rosalind that may be chosen out of the gross band of the unfaithful: therefore beware my censure and keep your promise. ORLANDO With no less religion than if thou wert indeed my Rosalind: so adieu. ROSALIND Well, Time is the old justice that examines all such offenders, and let Time try: adieu. [Exit ORLANDO] CELIA You have simply misused our sex in your love-prate: we must have your doublet and hose plucked over your head, and show the world what the bird hath done to her own nest. ROSALIND O coz, coz, coz, my pretty little coz, that thou didst know how many fathom deep I am in love! But it cannot be sounded: my affection hath an unknown bottom, like the bay of Portugal. CELIA Or rather, bottomless, that as fast as you pour affection in, it runs out. ROSALIND No, that same wicked bastard of Venus that was begot of thought, conceived of spleen and born of madness, that blind rascally boy that abuses every one's eyes because his own are out, let him be judge how deep I am in love. I'll tell thee, Aliena, I cannot be out of the sight of Orlando: I'll go find a shadow and sigh till he come. CELIA And I'll sleep. [Exeunt] AS YOU LIKE IT ACT IV SCENE II The forest. [Enter JAQUES, Lords, and Foresters] JAQUES Which is he that killed the deer? A Lord Sir, it was I. JAQUES Let's present him to the duke, like a Roman conqueror; and it would do well to set the deer's horns upon his head, for a branch of victory. Have you no song, forester, for this purpose? Forester Yes, sir. JAQUES Sing it: 'tis no matter how it be in tune, so it make noise enough. SONG. Forester What shall he have that kill'd the deer? His leather skin and horns to wear. Then sing him home; [The rest shall bear this burden] Take thou no scorn to wear the horn; It was a crest ere thou wast born: Thy father's father wore it, And thy father bore it: The horn, the horn, the lusty horn Is not a thing to laugh to scorn. [Exeunt] AS YOU LIKE IT ACT IV SCENE III The forest. [Enter ROSALIND and CELIA] ROSALIND How say you now? Is it not past two o'clock? and here much Orlando! CELIA I warrant you, with pure love and troubled brain, he hath ta'en his bow and arrows and is gone forth to sleep. Look, who comes here. [Enter SILVIUS] SILVIUS My errand is to you, fair youth; My gentle Phebe bid me give you this: I know not the contents; but, as I guess By the stern brow and waspish action Which she did use as she was writing of it, It bears an angry tenor: pardon me: I am but as a guiltless messenger. ROSALIND Patience herself would startle at this letter And play the swaggerer; bear this, bear all: She says I am not fair, that I lack manners; She calls me proud, and that she could not love me, Were man as rare as phoenix. 'Od's my will! Her love is not the hare that I do hunt: Why writes she so to me? Well, shepherd, well, This is a letter of your own device. SILVIUS No, I protest, I know not the contents: Phebe did write it. ROSALIND Come, come, you are a fool And turn'd into the extremity of love. I saw her hand: she has a leathern hand. A freestone-colour'd hand; I verily did think That her old gloves were on, but 'twas her hands: She has a huswife's hand; but that's no matter: I say she never did invent this letter; This is a man's invention and his hand. SILVIUS Sure, it is hers. ROSALIND Why, 'tis a boisterous and a cruel style. A style for-challengers; why, she defies me, Like Turk to Christian: women's gentle brain Could not drop forth such giant-rude invention Such Ethiope words, blacker in their effect Than in their countenance. Will you hear the letter? SILVIUS So please you, for I never heard it yet; Yet heard too much of Phebe's cruelty. ROSALIND She Phebes me: mark how the tyrant writes. [Reads] Art thou god to shepherd turn'd, That a maiden's heart hath burn'd? Can a woman rail thus? SILVIUS Call you this railing? ROSALIND [Reads] Why, thy godhead laid apart, Warr'st thou with a woman's heart? Did you ever hear such railing? Whiles the eye of man did woo me, That could do no vengeance to me. Meaning me a beast. If the scorn of your bright eyne Have power to raise such love in mine, Alack, in me what strange effect Would they work in mild aspect! Whiles you chid me, I did love; How then might your prayers move! He that brings this love to thee Little knows this love in me: And by him seal up thy mind; Whether that thy youth and kind Will the faithful offer take Of me and all that I can make; Or else by him my love deny, And then I'll study how to die. SILVIUS Call you this chiding? CELIA Alas, poor shepherd! ROSALIND Do you pity him? no, he deserves no pity. Wilt thou love such a woman? What, to make thee an instrument and play false strains upon thee! not to be endured! Well, go your way to her, for I see love hath made thee a tame snake, and say this to her: that if she love me, I charge her to love thee; if she will not, I will never have her unless thou entreat for her. If you be a true lover, hence, and not a word; for here comes more company. [Exit SILVIUS] [Enter OLIVER] OLIVER Good morrow, fair ones: pray you, if you know, Where in the purlieus of this forest stands A sheep-cote fenced about with olive trees? CELIA West of this place, down in the neighbour bottom: The rank of osiers by the murmuring stream Left on your right hand brings you to the place. But at this hour the house doth keep itself; There's none within. OLIVER If that an eye may profit by a tongue, Then should I know you by description; Such garments and such years: 'The boy is fair, Of female favour, and bestows himself Like a ripe sister: the woman low And browner than her brother.' Are not you The owner of the house I did inquire for? CELIA It is no boast, being ask'd, to say we are. OLIVER Orlando doth commend him to you both, And to that youth he calls his Rosalind He sends this bloody napkin. Are you he? ROSALIND I am: what must we understand by this? OLIVER Some of my shame; if you will know of me What man I am, and how, and why, and where This handkercher was stain'd. CELIA I pray you, tell it. OLIVER When last the young Orlando parted from you He left a promise to return again Within an hour, and pacing through the forest, Chewing the food of sweet and bitter fancy, Lo, what befell! he threw his eye aside, And mark what object did present itself: Under an oak, whose boughs were moss'd with age And high top bald with dry antiquity, A wretched ragged man, o'ergrown with hair, Lay sleeping on his back: about his neck A green and gilded snake had wreathed itself, Who with her head nimble in threats approach'd The opening of his mouth; but suddenly, Seeing Orlando, it unlink'd itself, And with indented glides did slip away Into a bush: under which bush's shade A lioness, with udders all drawn dry, Lay couching, head on ground, with catlike watch, When that the sleeping man should stir; for 'tis The royal disposition of that beast To prey on nothing that doth seem as dead: This seen, Orlando did approach the man And found it was his brother, his elder brother. CELIA O, I have heard him speak of that same brother; And he did render him the most unnatural That lived amongst men. OLIVER And well he might so do, For well I know he was unnatural. ROSALIND But, to Orlando: did he leave him there, Food to the suck'd and hungry lioness? OLIVER Twice did he turn his back and purposed so; But kindness, nobler ever than revenge, And nature, stronger than his just occasion, Made him give battle to the lioness, Who quickly fell before him: in which hurtling From miserable slumber I awaked. CELIA Are you his brother? ROSALIND Wast you he rescued? CELIA Was't you that did so oft contrive to kill him? OLIVER 'Twas I; but 'tis not I I do not shame To tell you what I was, since my conversion So sweetly tastes, being the thing I am. ROSALIND But, for the bloody napkin? OLIVER By and by. When from the first to last betwixt us two Tears our recountments had most kindly bathed, As how I came into that desert place:-- In brief, he led me to the gentle duke, Who gave me fresh array and entertainment, Committing me unto my brother's love; Who led me instantly unto his cave, There stripp'd himself, and here upon his arm The lioness had torn some flesh away, Which all this while had bled; and now he fainted And cried, in fainting, upon Rosalind. Brief, I recover'd him, bound up his wound; And, after some small space, being strong at heart, He sent me hither, stranger as I am, To tell this story, that you might excuse His broken promise, and to give this napkin Dyed in his blood unto the shepherd youth That he in sport doth call his Rosalind. [ROSALIND swoons] CELIA Why, how now, Ganymede! sweet Ganymede! OLIVER Many will swoon when they do look on blood. CELIA There is more in it. Cousin Ganymede! OLIVER Look, he recovers. ROSALIND I would I were at home. CELIA We'll lead you thither. I pray you, will you take him by the arm? OLIVER Be of good cheer, youth: you a man! you lack a man's heart. ROSALIND I do so, I confess it. Ah, sirrah, a body would think this was well counterfeited! I pray you, tell your brother how well I counterfeited. Heigh-ho! OLIVER This was not counterfeit: there is too great testimony in your complexion that it was a passion of earnest. ROSALIND Counterfeit, I assure you. OLIVER Well then, take a good heart and counterfeit to be a man. ROSALIND So I do: but, i' faith, I should have been a woman by right. CELIA Come, you look paler and paler: pray you, draw homewards. Good sir, go with us. OLIVER That will I, for I must bear answer back How you excuse my brother, Rosalind. ROSALIND I shall devise something: but, I pray you, commend my counterfeiting to him. Will you go? [Exeunt] AS YOU LIKE IT ACT V SCENE I The forest. [Enter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY] TOUCHSTONE We shall find a time, Audrey; patience, gentle Audrey. AUDREY Faith, the priest was good enough, for all the old gentleman's saying. TOUCHSTONE A most wicked Sir Oliver, Audrey, a most vile Martext. But, Audrey, there is a youth here in the forest lays claim to you. AUDREY Ay, I know who 'tis; he hath no interest in me in the world: here comes the man you mean. TOUCHSTONE It is meat and drink to me to see a clown: by my troth, we that have good wits have much to answer for; we shall be flouting; we cannot hold. [Enter WILLIAM] WILLIAM Good even, Audrey. AUDREY God ye good even, William. WILLIAM And good even to you, sir. TOUCHSTONE Good even, gentle friend. Cover thy head, cover thy head; nay, prithee, be covered. How old are you, friend? WILLIAM Five and twenty, sir. TOUCHSTONE A ripe age. Is thy name William? WILLIAM William, sir. TOUCHSTONE A fair name. Wast born i' the forest here? WILLIAM Ay, sir, I thank God. TOUCHSTONE 'Thank God;' a good answer. Art rich? WILLIAM Faith, sir, so so. TOUCHSTONE 'So so' is good, very good, very excellent good; and yet it is not; it is but so so. Art thou wise? WILLIAM Ay, sir, I have a pretty wit. TOUCHSTONE Why, thou sayest well. I do now remember a saying, 'The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.' The heathen philosopher, when he had a desire to eat a grape, would open his lips when he put it into his mouth; meaning thereby that grapes were made to eat and lips to open. You do love this maid? WILLIAM I do, sir. TOUCHSTONE Give me your hand. Art thou learned? WILLIAM No, sir. TOUCHSTONE Then learn this of me: to have, is to have; for it is a figure in rhetoric that drink, being poured out of a cup into a glass, by filling the one doth empty the other; for all your writers do consent that ipse is he: now, you are not ipse, for I am he. WILLIAM Which he, sir? TOUCHSTONE He, sir, that must marry this woman. Therefore, you clown, abandon,--which is in the vulgar leave,--the society,--which in the boorish is company,--of this female,--which in the common is woman; which together is, abandon the society of this female, or, clown, thou perishest; or, to thy better understanding, diest; or, to wit I kill thee, make thee away, translate thy life into death, thy liberty into bondage: I will deal in poison with thee, or in bastinado, or in steel; I will bandy with thee in faction; I will o'errun thee with policy; I will kill thee a hundred and fifty ways: therefore tremble and depart. AUDREY Do, good William. WILLIAM God rest you merry, sir. [Exit] [Enter CORIN] CORIN Our master and mistress seeks you; come, away, away! TOUCHSTONE Trip, Audrey! trip, Audrey! I attend, I attend. [Exeunt] AS YOU LIKE IT ACT V SCENE II The forest. [Enter ORLANDO and OLIVER] ORLANDO Is't possible that on so little acquaintance you should like her? that but seeing you should love her? and loving woo? and, wooing, she should grant? and will you persever to enjoy her? OLIVER Neither call the giddiness of it in question, the poverty of her, the small acquaintance, my sudden wooing, nor her sudden consenting; but say with me, I love Aliena; say with her that she loves me; consent with both that we may enjoy each other: it shall be to your good; for my father's house and all the revenue that was old Sir Rowland's will I estate upon you, and here live and die a shepherd. ORLANDO You have my consent. Let your wedding be to-morrow: thither will I invite the duke and all's contented followers. Go you and prepare Aliena; for look you, here comes my Rosalind. [Enter ROSALIND] ROSALIND God save you, brother. OLIVER And you, fair sister. [Exit] ROSALIND O, my dear Orlando, how it grieves me to see thee wear thy heart in a scarf! ORLANDO It is my arm. ROSALIND I thought thy heart had been wounded with the claws of a lion. ORLANDO Wounded it is, but with the eyes of a lady. ROSALIND Did your brother tell you how I counterfeited to swoon when he showed me your handkerchief? ORLANDO Ay, and greater wonders than that. ROSALIND O, I know where you are: nay, 'tis true: there was never any thing so sudden but the fight of two rams and Caesar's thrasonical brag of 'I came, saw, and overcame:' for your brother and my sister no sooner met but they looked, no sooner looked but they loved, no sooner loved but they sighed, no sooner sighed but they asked one another the reason, no sooner knew the reason but they sought the remedy; and in these degrees have they made a pair of stairs to marriage which they will climb incontinent, or else be incontinent before marriage: they are in the very wrath of love and they will together; clubs cannot part them. ORLANDO They shall be married to-morrow, and I will bid the duke to the nuptial. But, O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes! By so much the more shall I to-morrow be at the height of heart-heaviness, by how much I shall think my brother happy in having what he wishes for. ROSALIND Why then, to-morrow I cannot serve your turn for Rosalind? ORLANDO I can live no longer by thinking. ROSALIND I will weary you then no longer with idle talking. Know of me then, for now I speak to some purpose, that I know you are a gentleman of good conceit: I speak not this that you should bear a good opinion of my knowledge, insomuch I say I know you are; neither do I labour for a greater esteem than may in some little measure draw a belief from you, to do yourself good and not to grace me. Believe then, if you please, that I can do strange things: I have, since I was three year old, conversed with a magician, most profound in his art and yet not damnable. If you do love Rosalind so near the heart as your gesture cries it out, when your brother marries Aliena, shall you marry her: I know into what straits of fortune she is driven; and it is not impossible to me, if it appear not inconvenient to you, to set her before your eyes tomorrow human as she is and without any danger. ORLANDO Speakest thou in sober meanings? ROSALIND By my life, I do; which I tender dearly, though I say I am a magician. Therefore, put you in your best array: bid your friends; for if you will be married to-morrow, you shall, and to Rosalind, if you will. [Enter SILVIUS and PHEBE] Look, here comes a lover of mine and a lover of hers. PHEBE Youth, you have done me much ungentleness, To show the letter that I writ to you. ROSALIND I care not if I have: it is my study To seem despiteful and ungentle to you: You are there followed by a faithful shepherd; Look upon him, love him; he worships you. PHEBE Good shepherd, tell this youth what 'tis to love. SILVIUS It is to be all made of sighs and tears; And so am I for Phebe. PHEBE And I for Ganymede. ORLANDO And I for Rosalind. ROSALIND And I for no woman. SILVIUS It is to be all made of faith and service; And so am I for Phebe. PHEBE And I for Ganymede. ORLANDO And I for Rosalind. ROSALIND And I for no woman. SILVIUS It is to be all made of fantasy, All made of passion and all made of wishes, All adoration, duty, and observance, All humbleness, all patience and impatience, All purity, all trial, all observance; And so am I for Phebe. PHEBE And so am I for Ganymede. ORLANDO And so am I for Rosalind. ROSALIND And so am I for no woman. PHEBE If this be so, why blame you me to love you? SILVIUS If this be so, why blame you me to love you? ORLANDO If this be so, why blame you me to love you? ROSALIND Who do you speak to, 'Why blame you me to love you?' ORLANDO To her that is not here, nor doth not hear. ROSALIND Pray you, no more of this; 'tis like the howling of Irish wolves against the moon. [To SILVIUS] I will help you, if I can: [To PHEBE] I would love you, if I could. To-morrow meet me all together. [To PHEBE] I will marry you, if ever I marry woman, and I'll be married to-morrow: [To ORLANDO] I will satisfy you, if ever I satisfied man, and you shall be married to-morrow: [To SILVIUS] I will content you, if what pleases you contents you, and you shall be married to-morrow. [To ORLANDO] As you love Rosalind, meet: [To SILVIUS] as you love Phebe, meet: and as I love no woman, I'll meet. So fare you well: I have left you commands. SILVIUS I'll not fail, if I live. PHEBE Nor I. ORLANDO Nor I. [Exeunt] AS YOU LIKE IT ACT V SCENE III The forest. [Enter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY] TOUCHSTONE To-morrow is the joyful day, Audrey; to-morrow will we be married. AUDREY I do desire it with all my heart; and I hope it is no dishonest desire to desire to be a woman of the world. Here comes two of the banished duke's pages. [Enter two Pages] First Page Well met, honest gentleman. TOUCHSTONE By my troth, well met. Come, sit, sit, and a song. Second Page We are for you: sit i' the middle. First Page Shall we clap into't roundly, without hawking or spitting or saying we are hoarse, which are the only prologues to a bad voice? Second Page I'faith, i'faith; and both in a tune, like two gipsies on a horse. SONG. It was a lover and his lass, With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, That o'er the green corn-field did pass In the spring time, the only pretty ring time, When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding: Sweet lovers love the spring. Between the acres of the rye, With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino These pretty country folks would lie, In spring time, &c. This carol they began that hour, With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, How that a life was but a flower In spring time, &c. And therefore take the present time, With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino; For love is crowned with the prime In spring time, &c. TOUCHSTONE Truly, young gentlemen, though there was no great matter in the ditty, yet the note was very untuneable. First Page You are deceived, sir: we kept time, we lost not our time. TOUCHSTONE By my troth, yes; I count it but time lost to hear such a foolish song. God be wi' you; and God mend your voices! Come, Audrey. [Exeunt] AS YOU LIKE IT ACT V SCENE IV The forest. [Enter DUKE SENIOR, AMIENS, JAQUES, ORLANDO, OLIVER, and CELIA] DUKE SENIOR Dost thou believe, Orlando, that the boy Can do all this that he hath promised? ORLANDO I sometimes do believe, and sometimes do not; As those that fear they hope, and know they fear. [Enter ROSALIND, SILVIUS, and PHEBE] ROSALIND Patience once more, whiles our compact is urged: You say, if I bring in your Rosalind, You will bestow her on Orlando here? DUKE SENIOR That would I, had I kingdoms to give with her. ROSALIND And you say, you will have her, when I bring her? ORLANDO That would I, were I of all kingdoms king. ROSALIND You say, you'll marry me, if I be willing? PHEBE That will I, should I die the hour after. ROSALIND But if you do refuse to marry me, You'll give yourself to this most faithful shepherd? PHEBE So is the bargain. ROSALIND You say, that you'll have Phebe, if she will? SILVIUS Though to have her and death were both one thing. ROSALIND I have promised to make all this matter even. Keep you your word, O duke, to give your daughter; You yours, Orlando, to receive his daughter: Keep your word, Phebe, that you'll marry me, Or else refusing me, to wed this shepherd: Keep your word, Silvius, that you'll marry her. If she refuse me: and from hence I go, To make these doubts all even. [Exeunt ROSALIND and CELIA] DUKE SENIOR I do remember in this shepherd boy Some lively touches of my daughter's favour. ORLANDO My lord, the first time that I ever saw him Methought he was a brother to your daughter: But, my good lord, this boy is forest-born, And hath been tutor'd in the rudiments Of many desperate studies by his uncle, Whom he reports to be a great magician, Obscured in the circle of this forest. [Enter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY] JAQUES There is, sure, another flood toward, and these couples are coming to the ark. Here comes a pair of very strange beasts, which in all tongues are called fools. TOUCHSTONE Salutation and greeting to you all! JAQUES Good my lord, bid him welcome: this is the motley-minded gentleman that I have so often met in the forest: he hath been a courtier, he swears. TOUCHSTONE If any man doubt that, let him put me to my purgation. I have trod a measure; I have flattered a lady; I have been politic with my friend, smooth with mine enemy; I have undone three tailors; I have had four quarrels, and like to have fought one. JAQUES And how was that ta'en up? TOUCHSTONE Faith, we met, and found the quarrel was upon the seventh cause. JAQUES How seventh cause? Good my lord, like this fellow. DUKE SENIOR I like him very well. TOUCHSTONE God 'ild you, sir; I desire you of the like. I press in here, sir, amongst the rest of the country copulatives, to swear and to forswear: according as marriage binds and blood breaks: a poor virgin, sir, an ill-favoured thing, sir, but mine own; a poor humour of mine, sir, to take that that no man else will: rich honesty dwells like a miser, sir, in a poor house; as your pearl in your foul oyster. DUKE SENIOR By my faith, he is very swift and sententious. TOUCHSTONE According to the fool's bolt, sir, and such dulcet diseases. JAQUES But, for the seventh cause; how did you find the quarrel on the seventh cause? TOUCHSTONE Upon a lie seven times removed:--bear your body more seeming, Audrey:--as thus, sir. I did dislike the cut of a certain courtier's beard: he sent me word, if I said his beard was not cut well, he was in the mind it was: this is called the Retort Courteous. If I sent him word again 'it was not well cut,' he would send me word, he cut it to please himself: this is called the Quip Modest. If again 'it was not well cut,' he disabled my judgment: this is called the Reply Churlish. If again 'it was not well cut,' he would answer, I spake not true: this is called the Reproof Valiant. If again 'it was not well cut,' he would say I lied: this is called the Counter-cheque Quarrelsome: and so to the Lie Circumstantial and the Lie Direct. JAQUES And how oft did you say his beard was not well cut? TOUCHSTONE I durst go no further than the Lie Circumstantial, nor he durst not give me the Lie Direct; and so we measured swords and parted. JAQUES Can you nominate in order now the degrees of the lie? TOUCHSTONE O sir, we quarrel in print, by the book; as you have books for good manners: I will name you the degrees. The first, the Retort Courteous; the second, the Quip Modest; the third, the Reply Churlish; the fourth, the Reproof Valiant; the fifth, the Countercheque Quarrelsome; the sixth, the Lie with Circumstance; the seventh, the Lie Direct. All these you may avoid but the Lie Direct; and you may avoid that too, with an If. I knew when seven justices could not take up a quarrel, but when the parties were met themselves, one of them thought but of an If, as, 'If you said so, then I said so;' and they shook hands and swore brothers. Your If is the only peacemaker; much virtue in If. JAQUES Is not this a rare fellow, my lord? he's as good at any thing and yet a fool. DUKE SENIOR He uses his folly like a stalking-horse and under the presentation of that he shoots his wit. [Enter HYMEN, ROSALIND, and CELIA] [Still Music] HYMEN Then is there mirth in heaven, When earthly things made even Atone together. Good duke, receive thy daughter Hymen from heaven brought her, Yea, brought her hither, That thou mightst join her hand with his Whose heart within his bosom is. ROSALIND [To DUKE SENIOR] To you I give myself, for I am yours. [To ORLANDO] To you I give myself, for I am yours. DUKE SENIOR If there be truth in sight, you are my daughter. ORLANDO If there be truth in sight, you are my Rosalind. PHEBE If sight and shape be true, Why then, my love adieu! ROSALIND I'll have no father, if you be not he: I'll have no husband, if you be not he: Nor ne'er wed woman, if you be not she. HYMEN Peace, ho! I bar confusion: 'Tis I must make conclusion Of these most strange events: Here's eight that must take hands To join in Hymen's bands, If truth holds true contents. You and you no cross shall part: You and you are heart in heart You to his love must accord, Or have a woman to your lord: You and you are sure together, As the winter to foul weather. Whiles a wedlock-hymn we sing, Feed yourselves with questioning; That reason wonder may diminish, How thus we met, and these things finish. SONG. Wedding is great Juno's crown: O blessed bond of board and bed! 'Tis Hymen peoples every town; High wedlock then be honoured: Honour, high honour and renown, To Hymen, god of every town! DUKE SENIOR O my dear niece, welcome thou art to me! Even daughter, welcome, in no less degree. PHEBE I will not eat my word, now thou art mine; Thy faith my fancy to thee doth combine. [Enter JAQUES DE BOYS] JAQUES DE BOYS Let me have audience for a word or two: I am the second son of old Sir Rowland, That bring these tidings to this fair assembly. Duke Frederick, hearing how that every day Men of great worth resorted to this forest, Address'd a mighty power; which were on foot, In his own conduct, purposely to take His brother here and put him to the sword: And to the skirts of this wild wood he came; Where meeting with an old religious man, After some question with him, was converted Both from his enterprise and from the world, His crown bequeathing to his banish'd brother, And all their lands restored to them again That were with him exiled. This to be true, I do engage my life. DUKE SENIOR Welcome, young man; Thou offer'st fairly to thy brothers' wedding: To one his lands withheld, and to the other A land itself at large, a potent dukedom. First, in this forest, let us do those ends That here were well begun and well begot: And after, every of this happy number That have endured shrewd days and nights with us Shall share the good of our returned fortune, According to the measure of their states. Meantime, forget this new-fall'n dignity And fall into our rustic revelry. Play, music! And you, brides and bridegrooms all, With measure heap'd in joy, to the measures fall. JAQUES Sir, by your patience. If I heard you rightly, The duke hath put on a religious life And thrown into neglect the pompous court? JAQUES DE BOYS He hath. JAQUES To him will I : out of these convertites There is much matter to be heard and learn'd. [To DUKE SENIOR] You to your former honour I bequeath; Your patience and your virtue well deserves it: [To ORLANDO] You to a love that your true faith doth merit: [To OLIVER] You to your land and love and great allies: [To SILVIUS] You to a long and well-deserved bed: [To TOUCHSTONE] And you to wrangling; for thy loving voyage Is but for two months victuall'd. So, to your pleasures: I am for other than for dancing measures. DUKE SENIOR Stay, Jaques, stay. JAQUES To see no pastime I what you would have I'll stay to know at your abandon'd cave. [Exit] DUKE SENIOR Proceed, proceed: we will begin these rites, As we do trust they'll end, in true delights. [A dance] AS YOU LIKE IT EPILOGUE ROSALIND It is not the fashion to see the lady the epilogue; but it is no more unhandsome than to see the lord the prologue. If it be true that good wine needs no bush, 'tis true that a good play needs no epilogue; yet to good wine they do use good bushes, and good plays prove the better by the help of good epilogues. What a case am I in then, that am neither a good epilogue nor cannot insinuate with you in the behalf of a good play! I am not furnished like a beggar, therefore to beg will not become me: my way is to conjure you; and I'll begin with the women. I charge you, O women, for the love you bear to men, to like as much of this play as please you: and I charge you, O men, for the love you bear to women--as I perceive by your simpering, none of you hates them--that between you and the women the play may please. If I were a woman I would kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased me, complexions that liked me and breaths that I defied not: and, I am sure, as many as have good beards or good faces or sweet breaths will, for my kind offer, when I make curtsy, bid me farewell. [Exeunt] THE COMEDY OF ERRORS DRAMATIS PERSONAE SOLINUS Duke of Ephesus. (DUKE SOLINUS:) AEGEON a merchant of Syracuse. ANTIPHOLUS | OF EPHESUS | | twin brothers, and sons to AEgeon and AEmilia. ANTIPHOLUS | OF SYRACUSE | DROMIO OF EPHESUS | | twin brothers, and attendants on the two Antipholuses. DROMIO OF SYRACUSE | BALTHAZAR a merchant ANGELO a goldsmith. First Merchant friend to Antipholus of Syracuse. Second Merchant to whom Angelo is a debtor. PINCH a schoolmaster. AEMILIA wife to AEgeon, an abbess at Ephesus. ADRIANA wife to Antipholus of Ephesus. LUCIANA her sister. LUCE servant to Adriana. A Courtezan. Gaoler, Officers, and other Attendants (Gaoler:) (Officer:) (Servant:) SCENE Ephesus. THE COMEDY OF ERRORS ACT I SCENE I A hall in DUKE SOLINUS'S palace. [Enter DUKE SOLINUS, AEGEON, Gaoler, Officers, and other Attendants] AEGEON Proceed, Solinus, to procure my fall And by the doom of death end woes and all. DUKE SOLINUS Merchant of Syracuse, plead no more; I am not partial to infringe our laws: The enmity and discord which of late Sprung from the rancorous outrage of your duke To merchants, our well-dealing countrymen, Who wanting guilders to redeem their lives Have seal'd his rigorous statutes with their bloods, Excludes all pity from our threatening looks. For, since the mortal and intestine jars 'Twixt thy seditious countrymen and us, It hath in solemn synods been decreed Both by the Syracusians and ourselves, To admit no traffic to our adverse towns Nay, more, If any born at Ephesus be seen At any Syracusian marts and fairs; Again: if any Syracusian born Come to the bay of Ephesus, he dies, His goods confiscate to the duke's dispose, Unless a thousand marks be levied, To quit the penalty and to ransom him. Thy substance, valued at the highest rate, Cannot amount unto a hundred marks; Therefore by law thou art condemned to die. AEGEON Yet this my comfort: when your words are done, My woes end likewise with the evening sun. DUKE SOLINUS Well, Syracusian, say in brief the cause Why thou departed'st from thy native home And for what cause thou camest to Ephesus. AEGEON A heavier task could not have been imposed Than I to speak my griefs unspeakable: Yet, that the world may witness that my end Was wrought by nature, not by vile offence, I'll utter what my sorrows give me leave. In Syracusa was I born, and wed Unto a woman, happy but for me, And by me, had not our hap been bad. With her I lived in joy; our wealth increased By prosperous voyages I often made To Epidamnum; till my factor's death And the great care of goods at random left Drew me from kind embracements of my spouse: From whom my absence was not six months old Before herself, almost at fainting under The pleasing punishment that women bear, Had made provision for her following me And soon and safe arrived where I was. There had she not been long, but she became A joyful mother of two goodly sons; And, which was strange, the one so like the other, As could not be distinguish'd but by names. That very hour, and in the self-same inn, A meaner woman was delivered Of such a burden, male twins, both alike: Those,--for their parents were exceeding poor,-- I bought and brought up to attend my sons. My wife, not meanly proud of two such boys, Made daily motions for our home return: Unwilling I agreed. Alas! too soon, We came aboard. A league from Epidamnum had we sail'd, Before the always wind-obeying deep Gave any tragic instance of our harm: But longer did we not retain much hope; For what obscured light the heavens did grant Did but convey unto our fearful minds A doubtful warrant of immediate death; Which though myself would gladly have embraced, Yet the incessant weepings of my wife, Weeping before for what she saw must come, And piteous plainings of the pretty babes, That mourn'd for fashion, ignorant what to fear, Forced me to seek delays for them and me. And this it was, for other means was none: The sailors sought for safety by our boat, And left the ship, then sinking-ripe, to us: My wife, more careful for the latter-born, Had fasten'd him unto a small spare mast, Such as seafaring men provide for storms; To him one of the other twins was bound, Whilst I had been like heedful of the other: The children thus disposed, my wife and I, Fixing our eyes on whom our care was fix'd, Fasten'd ourselves at either end the mast; And floating straight, obedient to the stream, Was carried towards Corinth, as we thought. At length the sun, gazing upon the earth, Dispersed those vapours that offended us; And by the benefit of his wished light, The seas wax'd calm, and we discovered Two ships from far making amain to us, Of Corinth that, of Epidaurus this: But ere they came,--O, let me say no more! Gather the sequel by that went before. DUKE SOLINUS Nay, forward, old man; do not break off so; For we may pity, though not pardon thee. AEGEON O, had the gods done so, I had not now Worthily term'd them merciless to us! For, ere the ships could meet by twice five leagues, We were encounterd by a mighty rock; Which being violently borne upon, Our helpful ship was splitted in the midst; So that, in this unjust divorce of us, Fortune had left to both of us alike What to delight in, what to sorrow for. Her part, poor soul! seeming as burdened With lesser weight but not with lesser woe, Was carried with more speed before the wind; And in our sight they three were taken up By fishermen of Corinth, as we thought. At length, another ship had seized on us; And, knowing whom it was their hap to save, Gave healthful welcome to their shipwreck'd guests; And would have reft the fishers of their prey, Had not their bark been very slow of sail; And therefore homeward did they bend their course. Thus have you heard me sever'd from my bliss; That by misfortunes was my life prolong'd, To tell sad stories of my own mishaps. DUKE SOLINUS And for the sake of them thou sorrowest for, Do me the favour to dilate at full What hath befall'n of them and thee till now. AEGEON My youngest boy, and yet my eldest care, At eighteen years became inquisitive After his brother: and importuned me That his attendant--so his case was like, Reft of his brother, but retain'd his name-- Might bear him company in the quest of him: Whom whilst I labour'd of a love to see, I hazarded the loss of whom I loved. Five summers have I spent in furthest Greece, Roaming clean through the bounds of Asia, And, coasting homeward, came to Ephesus; Hopeless to find, yet loath to leave unsought Or that or any place that harbours men. But here must end the story of my life; And happy were I in my timely death, Could all my travels warrant me they live. DUKE SOLINUS Hapless AEgeon, whom the fates have mark'd To bear the extremity of dire mishap! Now, trust me, were it not against our laws, Against my crown, my oath, my dignity, Which princes, would they, may not disannul, My soul would sue as advocate for thee. But, though thou art adjudged to the death And passed sentence may not be recall'd But to our honour's great disparagement, Yet I will favour thee in what I can. Therefore, merchant, I'll limit thee this day To seek thy life by beneficial help: Try all the friends thou hast in Ephesus; Beg thou, or borrow, to make up the sum, And live; if no, then thou art doom'd to die. Gaoler, take him to thy custody. Gaoler I will, my lord. AEGEON Hopeless and helpless doth AEgeon wend, But to procrastinate his lifeless end. [Exeunt] THE COMEDY OF ERRORS ACT I SCENE II The Mart. [Enter ANTIPHOLUS of Syracuse, DROMIO of Syracuse, and First Merchant] First Merchant Therefore give out you are of Epidamnum, Lest that your goods too soon be confiscate. This very day a Syracusian merchant Is apprehended for arrival here; And not being able to buy out his life According to the statute of the town, Dies ere the weary sun set in the west. There is your money that I had to keep. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Go bear it to the Centaur, where we host, And stay there, Dromio, till I come to thee. Within this hour it will be dinner-time: Till that, I'll view the manners of the town, Peruse the traders, gaze upon the buildings, And then return and sleep within mine inn, For with long travel I am stiff and weary. Get thee away. DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Many a man would take you at your word, And go indeed, having so good a mean. [Exit] ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE A trusty villain, sir, that very oft, When I am dull with care and melancholy, Lightens my humour with his merry jests. What, will you walk with me about the town, And then go to my inn and dine with me? First Merchant I am invited, sir, to certain merchants, Of whom I hope to make much benefit; I crave your pardon. Soon at five o'clock, Please you, I'll meet with you upon the mart And afterward consort you till bed-time: My present business calls me from you now. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Farewell till then: I will go lose myself And wander up and down to view the city. First Merchant Sir, I commend you to your own content. [Exit] ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE He that commends me to mine own content Commends me to the thing I cannot get. I to the world am like a drop of water That in the ocean seeks another drop, Who, falling there to find his fellow forth, Unseen, inquisitive, confounds himself: So I, to find a mother and a brother, In quest of them, unhappy, lose myself. [Enter DROMIO of Ephesus] Here comes the almanac of my true date. What now? how chance thou art return'd so soon? DROMIO OF EPHESUS Return'd so soon! rather approach'd too late: The capon burns, the pig falls from the spit, The clock hath strucken twelve upon the bell; My mistress made it one upon my cheek: She is so hot because the meat is cold; The meat is cold because you come not home; You come not home because you have no stomach; You have no stomach having broke your fast; But we that know what 'tis to fast and pray Are penitent for your default to-day. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Stop in your wind, sir: tell me this, I pray: Where have you left the money that I gave you? DROMIO OF EPHESUS O,--sixpence, that I had o' Wednesday last To pay the saddler for my mistress' crupper? The saddler had it, sir; I kept it not. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE I am not in a sportive humour now: Tell me, and dally not, where is the money? We being strangers here, how darest thou trust So great a charge from thine own custody? DROMIO OF EPHESUS I pray you, air, as you sit at dinner: I from my mistress come to you in post; If I return, I shall be post indeed, For she will score your fault upon my pate. Methinks your maw, like mine, should be your clock, And strike you home without a messenger. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Come, Dromio, come, these jests are out of season; Reserve them till a merrier hour than this. Where is the gold I gave in charge to thee? DROMIO OF EPHESUS To me, sir? why, you gave no gold to me. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Come on, sir knave, have done your foolishness, And tell me how thou hast disposed thy charge. DROMIO OF EPHESUS My charge was but to fetch you from the mart Home to your house, the Phoenix, sir, to dinner: My mistress and her sister stays for you. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE In what safe place you have bestow'd my money, Or I shall break that merry sconce of yours That stands on tricks when I am undisposed: Where is the thousand marks thou hadst of me? DROMIO OF EPHESUS I have some marks of yours upon my pate, Some of my mistress' marks upon my shoulders, But not a thousand marks between you both. If I should pay your worship those again, Perchance you will not bear them patiently. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Thy mistress' marks? what mistress, slave, hast thou? DROMIO OF EPHESUS Your worship's wife, my mistress at the Phoenix; She that doth fast till you come home to dinner, And prays that you will hie you home to dinner. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE What, wilt thou flout me thus unto my face, Being forbid? There, take you that, sir knave. DROMIO OF EPHESUS What mean you, sir? for God's sake, hold your hands! Nay, and you will not, sir, I'll take my heels. [Exit] ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Upon my life, by some device or other The villain is o'er-raught of all my money. They say this town is full of cozenage, As, nimble jugglers that deceive the eye, Dark-working sorcerers that change the mind, Soul-killing witches that deform the body, Disguised cheaters, prating mountebanks, And many such-like liberties of sin: If it prove so, I will be gone the sooner. I'll to the Centaur, to go seek this slave: I greatly fear my money is not safe. [Exit] THE COMEDY OF ERRORS ACT II SCENE I The house of ANTIPHOLUS of Ephesus. [Enter ADRIANA and LUCIANA] ADRIANA Neither my husband nor the slave return'd, That in such haste I sent to seek his master! Sure, Luciana, it is two o'clock. LUCIANA Perhaps some merchant hath invited him, And from the mart he's somewhere gone to dinner. Good sister, let us dine and never fret: A man is master of his liberty: Time is their master, and, when they see time, They'll go or come: if so, be patient, sister. ADRIANA Why should their liberty than ours be more? LUCIANA Because their business still lies out o' door. ADRIANA Look, when I serve him so, he takes it ill. LUCIANA O, know he is the bridle of your will. ADRIANA There's none but asses will be bridled so. LUCIANA Why, headstrong liberty is lash'd with woe. There's nothing situate under heaven's eye But hath his bound, in earth, in sea, in sky: The beasts, the fishes, and the winged fowls, Are their males' subjects and at their controls: Men, more divine, the masters of all these, Lords of the wide world and wild watery seas, Indued with intellectual sense and souls, Of more preeminence than fish and fowls, Are masters to their females, and their lords: Then let your will attend on their accords. ADRIANA This servitude makes you to keep unwed. LUCIANA Not this, but troubles of the marriage-bed. ADRIANA But, were you wedded, you would bear some sway. LUCIANA Ere I learn love, I'll practise to obey. ADRIANA How if your husband start some other where? LUCIANA Till he come home again, I would forbear. ADRIANA Patience unmoved! no marvel though she pause; They can be meek that have no other cause. A wretched soul, bruised with adversity, We bid be quiet when we hear it cry; But were we burdened with like weight of pain, As much or more would we ourselves complain: So thou, that hast no unkind mate to grieve thee, With urging helpless patience wouldst relieve me, But, if thou live to see like right bereft, This fool-begg'd patience in thee will be left. LUCIANA Well, I will marry one day, but to try. Here comes your man; now is your husband nigh. [Enter DROMIO of Ephesus] ADRIANA Say, is your tardy master now at hand? DROMIO OF EPHESUS Nay, he's at two hands with me, and that my two ears can witness. ADRIANA Say, didst thou speak with him? know'st thou his mind? DROMIO OF EPHESUS Ay, ay, he told his mind upon mine ear: Beshrew his hand, I scarce could understand it. LUCIANA Spake he so doubtfully, thou couldst not feel his meaning? DROMIO OF EPHESUS Nay, he struck so plainly, I could too well feel his blows; and withal so doubtfully that I could scarce understand them. ADRIANA But say, I prithee, is he coming home? It seems he hath great care to please his wife. DROMIO OF EPHESUS Why, mistress, sure my master is horn-mad. ADRIANA Horn-mad, thou villain! DROMIO OF EPHESUS I mean not cuckold-mad; But, sure, he is stark mad. When I desired him to come home to dinner, He ask'd me for a thousand marks in gold: ''Tis dinner-time,' quoth I; 'My gold!' quoth he; 'Your meat doth burn,' quoth I; 'My gold!' quoth he: 'Will you come home?' quoth I; 'My gold!' quoth he. 'Where is the thousand marks I gave thee, villain?' 'The pig,' quoth I, 'is burn'd;' 'My gold!' quoth he: 'My mistress, sir' quoth I; 'Hang up thy mistress! I know not thy mistress; out on thy mistress!' LUCIANA Quoth who? DROMIO OF EPHESUS Quoth my master: 'I know,' quoth he, 'no house, no wife, no mistress.' So that my errand, due unto my tongue, I thank him, I bare home upon my shoulders; For, in conclusion, he did beat me there. ADRIANA Go back again, thou slave, and fetch him home. DROMIO OF EPHESUS Go back again, and be new beaten home? For God's sake, send some other messenger. ADRIANA Back, slave, or I will break thy pate across. DROMIO OF EPHESUS And he will bless that cross with other beating: Between you I shall have a holy head. ADRIANA Hence, prating peasant! fetch thy master home. DROMIO OF EPHESUS Am I so round with you as you with me, That like a football you do spurn me thus? You spurn me hence, and he will spurn me hither: If I last in this service, you must case me in leather. [Exit] LUCIANA Fie, how impatience loureth in your face! ADRIANA His company must do his minions grace, Whilst I at home starve for a merry look. Hath homely age the alluring beauty took From my poor cheek? then he hath wasted it: Are my discourses dull? barren my wit? If voluble and sharp discourse be marr'd, Unkindness blunts it more than marble hard: Do their gay vestments his affections bait? That's not my fault: he's master of my state: What ruins are in me that can be found, By him not ruin'd? then is he the ground Of my defeatures. My decayed fair A sunny look of his would soon repair But, too unruly deer, he breaks the pale And feeds from home; poor I am but his stale. LUCIANA Self-harming jealousy! fie, beat it hence! ADRIANA Unfeeling fools can with such wrongs dispense. I know his eye doth homage otherwhere, Or else what lets it but he would be here? Sister, you know he promised me a chain; Would that alone, alone he would detain, So he would keep fair quarter with his bed! I see the jewel best enamelled Will lose his beauty; yet the gold bides still, That others touch, and often touching will Wear gold: and no man that hath a name, By falsehood and corruption doth it shame. Since that my beauty cannot please his eye, I'll weep what's left away, and weeping die. LUCIANA How many fond fools serve mad jealousy! [Exeunt] THE COMEDY OF ERRORS ACT II SCENE II A public place. [Enter ANTIPHOLUS of Syracuse] ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE The gold I gave to Dromio is laid up Safe at the Centaur; and the heedful slave Is wander'd forth, in care to seek me out By computation and mine host's report. I could not speak with Dromio since at first I sent him from the mart. See, here he comes. [Enter DROMIO of Syracuse] How now sir! is your merry humour alter'd? As you love strokes, so jest with me again. You know no Centaur? you received no gold? Your mistress sent to have me home to dinner? My house was at the Phoenix? Wast thou mad, That thus so madly thou didst answer me? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE What answer, sir? when spake I such a word? ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Even now, even here, not half an hour since. DROMIO OF SYRACUSE I did not see you since you sent me hence, Home to the Centaur, with the gold you gave me. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Villain, thou didst deny the gold's receipt, And told'st me of a mistress and a dinner; For which, I hope, thou felt'st I was displeased. DROMIO OF SYRACUSE I am glad to see you in this merry vein: What means this jest? I pray you, master, tell me. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Yea, dost thou jeer and flout me in the teeth? Think'st thou I jest? Hold, take thou that, and that. [Beating him] DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Hold, sir, for God's sake! now your jest is earnest: Upon what bargain do you give it me? ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Because that I familiarly sometimes Do use you for my fool and chat with you, Your sauciness will jest upon my love And make a common of my serious hours. When the sun shines let foolish gnats make sport, But creep in crannies when he hides his beams. If you will jest with me, know my aspect, And fashion your demeanor to my looks, Or I will beat this method in your sconce. DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Sconce call you it? so you would leave battering, I had rather have it a head: an you use these blows long, I must get a sconce for my head and ensconce it too; or else I shall seek my wit in my shoulders. But, I pray, sir why am I beaten? ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Dost thou not know? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Nothing, sir, but that I am beaten. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Shall I tell you why? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Ay, sir, and wherefore; for they say every why hath a wherefore. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Why, first,--for flouting me; and then, wherefore-- For urging it the second time to me. DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Was there ever any man thus beaten out of season, When in the why and the wherefore is neither rhyme nor reason? Well, sir, I thank you. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Thank me, sir, for what? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Marry, sir, for this something that you gave me for nothing. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE I'll make you amends next, to give you nothing for something. But say, sir, is it dinner-time? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE No, sir; I think the meat wants that I have. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE In good time, sir; what's that? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Basting. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Well, sir, then 'twill be dry. DROMIO OF SYRACUSE If it be, sir, I pray you, eat none of it. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Your reason? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Lest it make you choleric and purchase me another dry basting. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Well, sir, learn to jest in good time: there's a time for all things. DROMIO OF SYRACUSE I durst have denied that, before you were so choleric. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE By what rule, sir? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Marry, sir, by a rule as plain as the plain bald pate of father Time himself. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Let's hear it. DROMIO OF SYRACUSE There's no time for a man to recover his hair that grows bald by nature. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE May he not do it by fine and recovery? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Yes, to pay a fine for a periwig and recover the lost hair of another man. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Why is Time such a niggard of hair, being, as it is, so plentiful an excrement? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Because it is a blessing that he bestows on beasts; and what he hath scanted men in hair he hath given them in wit. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Why, but there's many a man hath more hair than wit. DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Not a man of those but he hath the wit to lose his hair. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Why, thou didst conclude hairy men plain dealers without wit. DROMIO OF SYRACUSE The plainer dealer, the sooner lost: yet he loseth it in a kind of jollity. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE For what reason? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE For two; and sound ones too. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Nay, not sound, I pray you. DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Sure ones, then. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Nay, not sure, in a thing falsing. DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Certain ones then. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Name them. DROMIO OF SYRACUSE The one, to save the money that he spends in trimming; the other, that at dinner they should not drop in his porridge. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE You would all this time have proved there is no time for all things. DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Marry, and did, sir; namely, no time to recover hair lost by nature. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE But your reason was not substantial, why there is no time to recover. DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Thus I mend it: Time himself is bald and therefore to the world's end will have bald followers. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE I knew 'twould be a bald conclusion: But, soft! who wafts us yonder? [Enter ADRIANA and LUCIANA] ADRIANA Ay, ay, Antipholus, look strange and frown: Some other mistress hath thy sweet aspects; I am not Adriana nor thy wife. The time was once when thou unurged wouldst vow That never words were music to thine ear, That never object pleasing in thine eye, That never touch well welcome to thy hand, That never meat sweet-savor'd in thy taste, Unless I spake, or look'd, or touch'd, or carved to thee. How comes it now, my husband, O, how comes it, That thou art thus estranged from thyself? Thyself I call it, being strange to me, That, undividable, incorporate, Am better than thy dear self's better part. Ah, do not tear away thyself from me! For know, my love, as easy mayest thou fall A drop of water in the breaking gulf, And take unmingled that same drop again, Without addition or diminishing, As take from me thyself and not me too. How dearly would it touch me to the quick, Shouldst thou but hear I were licentious And that this body, consecrate to thee, By ruffian lust should be contaminate! Wouldst thou not spit at me and spurn at me And hurl the name of husband in my face And tear the stain'd skin off my harlot-brow And from my false hand cut the wedding-ring And break it with a deep-divorcing vow? I know thou canst; and therefore see thou do it. I am possess'd with an adulterate blot; My blood is mingled with the crime of lust: For if we too be one and thou play false, I do digest the poison of thy flesh, Being strumpeted by thy contagion. Keep then far league and truce with thy true bed; I live unstain'd, thou undishonoured. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Plead you to me, fair dame? I know you not: In Ephesus I am but two hours old, As strange unto your town as to your talk; Who, every word by all my wit being scann'd, Want wit in all one word to understand. LUCIANA Fie, brother! how the world is changed with you! When were you wont to use my sister thus? She sent for you by Dromio home to dinner. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE By Dromio? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE By me? ADRIANA By thee; and this thou didst return from him, That he did buffet thee, and, in his blows, Denied my house for his, me for his wife. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Did you converse, sir, with this gentlewoman? What is the course and drift of your compact? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE I, sir? I never saw her till this time. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Villain, thou liest; for even her very words Didst thou deliver to me on the mart. DROMIO OF SYRACUSE I never spake with her in all my life. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE How can she thus then call us by our names, Unless it be by inspiration. ADRIANA How ill agrees it with your gravity To counterfeit thus grossly with your slave, Abetting him to thwart me in my mood! Be it my wrong you are from me exempt, But wrong not that wrong with a more contempt. Come, I will fasten on this sleeve of thine: Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine, Whose weakness, married to thy stronger state, Makes me with thy strength to communicate: If aught possess thee from me, it is dross, Usurping ivy, brier, or idle moss; Who, all for want of pruning, with intrusion Infect thy sap and live on thy confusion. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE To me she speaks; she moves me for her theme: What, was I married to her in my dream? Or sleep I now and think I hear all this? What error drives our eyes and ears amiss? Until I know this sure uncertainty, I'll entertain the offer'd fallacy. LUCIANA Dromio, go bid the servants spread for dinner. DROMIO OF SYRACUSE O, for my beads! I cross me for a sinner. This is the fairy land: O spite of spites! We talk with goblins, owls and sprites: If we obey them not, this will ensue, They'll suck our breath, or pinch us black and blue. LUCIANA Why pratest thou to thyself and answer'st not? Dromio, thou drone, thou snail, thou slug, thou sot! DROMIO OF SYRACUSE I am transformed, master, am I not? ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE I think thou art in mind, and so am I. DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Nay, master, both in mind and in my shape. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Thou hast thine own form. DROMIO OF SYRACUSE No, I am an ape. LUCIANA If thou art changed to aught, 'tis to an ass. DROMIO OF SYRACUSE 'Tis true; she rides me and I long for grass. 'Tis so, I am an ass; else it could never be But I should know her as well as she knows me. ADRIANA Come, come, no longer will I be a fool, To put the finger in the eye and weep, Whilst man and master laugh my woes to scorn. Come, sir, to dinner. Dromio, keep the gate. Husband, I'll dine above with you to-day And shrive you of a thousand idle pranks. Sirrah, if any ask you for your master, Say he dines forth, and let no creature enter. Come, sister. Dromio, play the porter well. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Am I in earth, in heaven, or in hell? Sleeping or waking? mad or well-advised? Known unto these, and to myself disguised! I'll say as they say and persever so, And in this mist at all adventures go. DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Master, shall I be porter at the gate? ADRIANA Ay; and let none enter, lest I break your pate. LUCIANA Come, come, Antipholus, we dine too late. [Exeunt] THE COMEDY OF ERRORS ACT III SCENE I Before the house of ANTIPHOLUS of Ephesus. [Enter ANTIPHOLUS of Ephesus, DROMIO of Ephesus, ANGELO, and BALTHAZAR] ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS Good Signior Angelo, you must excuse us all; My wife is shrewish when I keep not hours: Say that I linger'd with you at your shop To see the making of her carcanet, And that to-morrow you will bring it home. But here's a villain that would face me down He met me on the mart, and that I beat him, And charged him with a thousand marks in gold, And that I did deny my wife and house. Thou drunkard, thou, what didst thou mean by this? DROMIO OF EPHESUS Say what you will, sir, but I know what I know; That you beat me at the mart, I have your hand to show: If the skin were parchment, and the blows you gave were ink, Your own handwriting would tell you what I think. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS I think thou art an ass. DROMIO OF EPHESUS Marry, so it doth appear By the wrongs I suffer and the blows I bear. I should kick, being kick'd; and, being at that pass, You would keep from my heels and beware of an ass. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS You're sad, Signior Balthazar: pray God our cheer May answer my good will and your good welcome here. BALTHAZAR I hold your dainties cheap, sir, and your welcome dear. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS O, Signior Balthazar, either at flesh or fish, A table full of welcome make scarce one dainty dish. BALTHAZAR Good meat, sir, is common; that every churl affords. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS And welcome more common; for that's nothing but words. BALTHAZAR Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS Ay, to a niggardly host, and more sparing guest: But though my cates be mean, take them in good part; Better cheer may you have, but not with better heart. But, soft! my door is lock'd. Go bid them let us in. DROMIO OF EPHESUS Maud, Bridget, Marian, Cicel, Gillian, Ginn! DROMIO OF SYRACUSE [Within] Mome, malt-horse, capon, coxcomb, idiot, patch! Either get thee from the door, or sit down at the hatch. Dost thou conjure for wenches, that thou call'st for such store, When one is one too many? Go, get thee from the door. DROMIO OF EPHESUS What patch is made our porter? My master stays in the street. DROMIO OF SYRACUSE [Within] Let him walk from whence he came, lest he catch cold on's feet. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS Who talks within there? ho, open the door! DROMIO OF SYRACUSE [Within] Right, sir; I'll tell you when, an you tell me wherefore. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS Wherefore? for my dinner: I have not dined to-day. DROMIO OF SYRACUSE [Within] Nor to-day here you must not; come again when you may. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS What art thou that keepest me out from the house I owe? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE [Within] The porter for this time, sir, and my name is Dromio. DROMIO OF EPHESUS O villain! thou hast stolen both mine office and my name. The one ne'er got me credit, the other mickle blame. If thou hadst been Dromio to-day in my place, Thou wouldst have changed thy face for a name or thy name for an ass. LUCE [Within] What a coil is there, Dromio? who are those at the gate? DROMIO OF EPHESUS Let my master in, Luce. LUCE [Within] Faith, no; he comes too late; And so tell your master. DROMIO OF EPHESUS O Lord, I must laugh! Have at you with a proverb--Shall I set in my staff? LUCE [Within] Have at you with another; that's--When? can you tell? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE [Within] If thy name be call'd Luce--Luce, thou hast answered him well. ANTIPHOLUS Do you hear, you minion? you'll let us in, I hope? OF EPHESUS LUCE [Within] I thought to have asked you. DROMIO OF SYRACUSE [Within] And you said no. DROMIO OF EPHESUS So, come, help: well struck! there was blow for blow. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS Thou baggage, let me in. LUCE [Within] Can you tell for whose sake? DROMIO OF EPHESUS Master, knock the door hard. LUCE [Within] Let him knock till it ache. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS You'll cry for this, minion, if I beat the door down. LUCE [Within] What needs all that, and a pair of stocks in the town? ADRIANA [Within] Who is that at the door that keeps all this noise? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE [Within] By my troth, your town is troubled with unruly boys. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS Are you there, wife? you might have come before. ADRIANA [Within] Your wife, sir knave! go get you from the door. DROMIO OF EPHESUS If you went in pain, master, this 'knave' would go sore. ANGELO Here is neither cheer, sir, nor welcome: we would fain have either. BALTHAZAR In debating which was best, we shall part with neither. DROMIO OF EPHESUS They stand at the door, master; bid them welcome hither. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS There is something in the wind, that we cannot get in. DROMIO OF EPHESUS You would say so, master, if your garments were thin. Your cake there is warm within; you stand here in the cold: It would make a man mad as a buck, to be so bought and sold. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS Go fetch me something: I'll break ope the gate. DROMIO OF SYRACUSE [Within] Break any breaking here, and I'll break your knave's pate. DROMIO OF EPHESUS A man may break a word with you, sir, and words are but wind, Ay, and break it in your face, so he break it not behind. DROMIO OF SYRACUSE [Within] It seems thou want'st breaking: out upon thee, hind! DROMIO OF EPHESUS Here's too much 'out upon thee!' I pray thee, let me in. DROMIO OF SYRACUSE [Within] Ay, when fowls have no feathers and fish have no fin. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS Well, I'll break in: go borrow me a crow. DROMIO OF EPHESUS A crow without feather? Master, mean you so? For a fish without a fin, there's a fowl without a feather; If a crow help us in, sirrah, we'll pluck a crow together. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS Go get thee gone; fetch me an iron crow. BALTHAZAR Have patience, sir; O, let it not be so! Herein you war against your reputation And draw within the compass of suspect The unviolated honour of your wife. Once this,--your long experience of her wisdom, Her sober virtue, years and modesty, Plead on her part some cause to you unknown: And doubt not, sir, but she will well excuse Why at this time the doors are made against you. Be ruled by me: depart in patience, And let us to the Tiger all to dinner, And about evening come yourself alone To know the reason of this strange restraint. If by strong hand you offer to break in Now in the stirring passage of the day, A vulgar comment will be made of it, And that supposed by the common rout Against your yet ungalled estimation That may with foul intrusion enter in And dwell upon your grave when you are dead; For slander lives upon succession, For ever housed where it gets possession. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS You have prevailed: I will depart in quiet, And, in despite of mirth, mean to be merry. I know a wench of excellent discourse, Pretty and witty; wild, and yet, too, gentle: There will we dine. This woman that I mean, My wife--but, I protest, without desert-- Hath oftentimes upbraided me withal: To her will we to dinner. [To Angelo] Get you home And fetch the chain; by this I know 'tis made: Bring it, I pray you, to the Porpentine; For there's the house: that chain will I bestow-- Be it for nothing but to spite my wife-- Upon mine hostess there: good sir, make haste. Since mine own doors refuse to entertain me, I'll knock elsewhere, to see if they'll disdain me. ANGELO I'll meet you at that place some hour hence. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS Do so. This jest shall cost me some expense. [Exeunt] THE COMEDY OF ERRORS ACT III SCENE II The same. [Enter LUCIANA and ANTIPHOLUS of Syracuse] LUCIANA And may it be that you have quite forgot A husband's office? shall, Antipholus. Even in the spring of love, thy love-springs rot? Shall love, in building, grow so ruinous? If you did wed my sister for her wealth, Then for her wealth's sake use her with more kindness: Or if you like elsewhere, do it by stealth; Muffle your false love with some show of blindness: Let not my sister read it in your eye; Be not thy tongue thy own shame's orator; Look sweet, be fair, become disloyalty; Apparel vice like virtue's harbinger; Bear a fair presence, though your heart be tainted; Teach sin the carriage of a holy saint; Be secret-false: what need she be acquainted? What simple thief brags of his own attaint? 'Tis double wrong, to truant with your bed And let her read it in thy looks at board: Shame hath a bastard fame, well managed; Ill deeds are doubled with an evil word. Alas, poor women! make us but believe, Being compact of credit, that you love us; Though others have the arm, show us the sleeve; We in your motion turn and you may move us. Then, gentle brother, get you in again; Comfort my sister, cheer her, call her wife: 'Tis holy sport to be a little vain, When the sweet breath of flattery conquers strife. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Sweet mistress--what your name is else, I know not, Nor by what wonder you do hit of mine,-- Less in your knowledge and your grace you show not Than our earth's wonder, more than earth divine. Teach me, dear creature, how to think and speak; Lay open to my earthy-gross conceit, Smother'd in errors, feeble, shallow, weak, The folded meaning of your words' deceit. Against my soul's pure truth why labour you To make it wander in an unknown field? Are you a god? would you create me new? Transform me then, and to your power I'll yield. But if that I am I, then well I know Your weeping sister is no wife of mine, Nor to her bed no homage do I owe Far more, far more to you do I decline. O, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note, To drown me in thy sister's flood of tears: Sing, siren, for thyself and I will dote: Spread o'er the silver waves thy golden hairs, And as a bed I'll take them and there lie, And in that glorious supposition think He gains by death that hath such means to die: Let Love, being light, be drowned if she sink! LUCIANA What, are you mad, that you do reason so? ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Not mad, but mated; how, I do not know. LUCIANA It is a fault that springeth from your eye. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE For gazing on your beams, fair sun, being by. LUCIANA Gaze where you should, and that will clear your sight. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE As good to wink, sweet love, as look on night. LUCIANA Why call you me love? call my sister so. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Thy sister's sister. LUCIANA That's my sister. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE No; It is thyself, mine own self's better part, Mine eye's clear eye, my dear heart's dearer heart, My food, my fortune and my sweet hope's aim, My sole earth's heaven and my heaven's claim. LUCIANA All this my sister is, or else should be. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Call thyself sister, sweet, for I am thee. Thee will I love and with thee lead my life: Thou hast no husband yet nor I no wife. Give me thy hand. LUCIANA O, soft, air! hold you still: I'll fetch my sister, to get her good will. [Exit] [Enter DROMIO of Syracuse] ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Why, how now, Dromio! where runn'st thou so fast? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Do you know me, sir? am I Dromio? am I your man? am I myself? ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Thou art Dromio, thou art my man, thou art thyself. DROMIO OF SYRACUSE I am an ass, I am a woman's man and besides myself. ANTIPHOLUS What woman's man? and how besides thyself? besides thyself? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Marry, sir, besides myself, I am due to a woman; one that claims me, one that haunts me, one that will have me. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE What claim lays she to thee? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Marry sir, such claim as you would lay to your horse; and she would have me as a beast: not that, I being a beast, she would have me; but that she, being a very beastly creature, lays claim to me. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE What is she? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE A very reverent body; ay, such a one as a man may not speak of without he say 'Sir-reverence.' I have but lean luck in the match, and yet is she a wondrous fat marriage. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE How dost thou mean a fat marriage? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Marry, sir, she's the kitchen wench and all grease; and I know not what use to put her to but to make a lamp of her and run from her by her own light. I warrant, her rags and the tallow in them will burn a Poland winter: if she lives till doomsday, she'll burn a week longer than the whole world. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE What complexion is she of? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Swart, like my shoe, but her face nothing half so clean kept: for why, she sweats; a man may go over shoes in the grime of it. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE That's a fault that water will mend. DROMIO OF SYRACUSE No, sir, 'tis in grain; Noah's flood could not do it. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE What's her name? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Nell, sir; but her name and three quarters, that's an ell and three quarters, will not measure her from hip to hip. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Then she bears some breadth? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE No longer from head to foot than from hip to hip: she is spherical, like a globe; I could find out countries in her. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE In what part of her body stands Ireland? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Marry, in her buttocks: I found it out by the bogs. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Where Scotland? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE I found it by the barrenness; hard in the palm of the hand. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Where France? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE In her forehead; armed and reverted, making war against her heir. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Where England? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE I looked for the chalky cliffs, but I could find no whiteness in them; but I guess it stood in her chin, by the salt rheum that ran between France and it. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Where Spain? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Faith, I saw it not; but I felt it hot in her breath. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Where America, the Indies? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Oh, sir, upon her nose all o'er embellished with rubies, carbuncles, sapphires, declining their rich aspect to the hot breath of Spain; who sent whole armadoes of caracks to be ballast at her nose. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Where stood Belgia, the Netherlands? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Oh, sir, I did not look so low. To conclude, this drudge, or diviner, laid claim to me, call'd me Dromio; swore I was assured to her; told me what privy marks I had about me, as, the mark of my shoulder, the mole in my neck, the great wart on my left arm, that I amazed ran from her as a witch: And, I think, if my breast had not been made of faith and my heart of steel, She had transform'd me to a curtal dog and made me turn i' the wheel. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Go hie thee presently, post to the road: An if the wind blow any way from shore, I will not harbour in this town to-night: If any bark put forth, come to the mart, Where I will walk till thou return to me. If every one knows us and we know none, 'Tis time, I think, to trudge, pack and be gone. DROMIO OF SYRACUSE As from a bear a man would run for life, So fly I from her that would be my wife. [Exit] ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE There's none but witches do inhabit here; And therefore 'tis high time that I were hence. She that doth call me husband, even my soul Doth for a wife abhor. But her fair sister, Possess'd with such a gentle sovereign grace, Of such enchanting presence and discourse, Hath almost made me traitor to myself: But, lest myself be guilty to self-wrong, I'll stop mine ears against the mermaid's song. [Enter ANGELO with the chain] ANGELO Master Antipholus,-- ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Ay, that's my name. ANGELO I know it well, sir, lo, here is the chain. I thought to have ta'en you at the Porpentine: The chain unfinish'd made me stay thus long. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE What is your will that I shall do with this? ANGELO What please yourself, sir: I have made it for you. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Made it for me, sir! I bespoke it not. ANGELO Not once, nor twice, but twenty times you have. Go home with it and please your wife withal; And soon at supper-time I'll visit you And then receive my money for the chain. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE I pray you, sir, receive the money now, For fear you ne'er see chain nor money more. ANGELO You are a merry man, sir: fare you well. [Exit] ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE What I should think of this, I cannot tell: But this I think, there's no man is so vain That would refuse so fair an offer'd chain. I see a man here needs not live by shifts, When in the streets he meets such golden gifts. I'll to the mart, and there for Dromio stay If any ship put out, then straight away. [Exit] THE COMEDY OF ERRORS ACT IV SCENE I A public place. [Enter Second Merchant, ANGELO, and an Officer] Second Merchant You know since Pentecost the sum is due, And since I have not much importuned you; Nor now I had not, but that I am bound To Persia, and want guilders for my voyage: Therefore make present satisfaction, Or I'll attach you by this officer. ANGELO Even just the sum that I do owe to you Is growing to me by Antipholus, And in the instant that I met with you He had of me a chain: at five o'clock I shall receive the money for the same. Pleaseth you walk with me down to his house, I will discharge my bond and thank you too. [Enter ANTIPHOLUS of Ephesus and DROMIO of Ephesus from the courtezan's] Officer That labour may you save: see where he comes. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS While I go to the goldsmith's house, go thou And buy a rope's end: that will I bestow Among my wife and her confederates, For locking me out of my doors by day. But, soft! I see the goldsmith. Get thee gone; Buy thou a rope and bring it home to me. DROMIO OF EPHESUS I buy a thousand pound a year: I buy a rope. [Exit] ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS A man is well holp up that trusts to you: I promised your presence and the chain; But neither chain nor goldsmith came to me. Belike you thought our love would last too long, If it were chain'd together, and therefore came not. ANGELO Saving your merry humour, here's the note How much your chain weighs to the utmost carat, The fineness of the gold and chargeful fashion. Which doth amount to three odd ducats more Than I stand debted to this gentleman: I pray you, see him presently discharged, For he is bound to sea and stays but for it. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS I am not furnish'd with the present money; Besides, I have some business in the town. Good signior, take the stranger to my house And with you take the chain and bid my wife Disburse the sum on the receipt thereof: Perchance I will be there as soon as you. ANGELO Then you will bring the chain to her yourself? ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS No; bear it with you, lest I come not time enough. ANGELO Well, sir, I will. Have you the chain about you? ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS An if I have not, sir, I hope you have; Or else you may return without your money. ANGELO Nay, come, I pray you, sir, give me the chain: Both wind and tide stays for this gentleman, And I, to blame, have held him here too long. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS Good Lord! you use this dalliance to excuse Your breach of promise to the Porpentine. I should have chid you for not bringing it, But, like a shrew, you first begin to brawl. Second Merchant The hour steals on; I pray you, sir, dispatch. ANGELO You hear how he importunes me;--the chain! ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS Why, give it to my wife and fetch your money. ANGELO Come, come, you know I gave it you even now. Either send the chain or send me by some token. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS Fie, now you run this humour out of breath, where's the chain? I pray you, let me see it. Second Merchant My business cannot brook this dalliance. Good sir, say whether you'll answer me or no: If not, I'll leave him to the officer. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS I answer you! what should I answer you? ANGELO The money that you owe me for the chain. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS I owe you none till I receive the chain. ANGELO You know I gave it you half an hour since. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS You gave me none: you wrong me much to say so. ANGELO You wrong me more, sir, in denying it: Consider how it stands upon my credit. Second Merchant Well, officer, arrest him at my suit. Officer I do; and charge you in the duke's name to obey me. ANGELO This touches me in reputation. Either consent to pay this sum for me Or I attach you by this officer. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS Consent to pay thee that I never had! Arrest me, foolish fellow, if thou darest. ANGELO Here is thy fee; arrest him, officer, I would not spare my brother in this case, If he should scorn me so apparently. Officer I do arrest you, sir: you hear the suit. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS I do obey thee till I give thee bail. But, sirrah, you shall buy this sport as dear As all the metal in your shop will answer. ANGELO Sir, sir, I will have law in Ephesus, To your notorious shame; I doubt it not. [Enter DROMIO of Syracuse, from the bay] DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Master, there is a bark of Epidamnum That stays but till her owner comes aboard, And then, sir, she bears away. Our fraughtage, sir, I have convey'd aboard; and I have bought The oil, the balsamum and aqua-vitae. The ship is in her trim; the merry wind Blows fair from land: they stay for nought at all But for their owner, master, and yourself. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS How now! a madman! Why, thou peevish sheep, What ship of Epidamnum stays for me? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE A ship you sent me to, to hire waftage. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS Thou drunken slave, I sent thee for a rope; And told thee to what purpose and what end. DROMIO OF SYRACUSE You sent me for a rope's end as soon: You sent me to the bay, sir, for a bark. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS I will debate this matter at more leisure And teach your ears to list me with more heed. To Adriana, villain, hie thee straight: Give her this key, and tell her, in the desk That's cover'd o'er with Turkish tapestry, There is a purse of ducats; let her send it: Tell her I am arrested in the street And that shall bail me; hie thee, slave, be gone! On, officer, to prison till it come. [Exeunt Second Merchant, Angelo, Officer, and Antipholus of Ephesus] DROMIO OF SYRACUSE To Adriana! that is where we dined, Where Dowsabel did claim me for her husband: She is too big, I hope, for me to compass. Thither I must, although against my will, For servants must their masters' minds fulfil. [Exit] THE COMEDY OF ERRORS ACT IV SCENE II The house of ANTIPHOLUS of Ephesus. [Enter ADRIANA and LUCIANA] ADRIANA Ah, Luciana, did he tempt thee so? Mightst thou perceive austerely in his eye That he did plead in earnest? yea or no? Look'd he or red or pale, or sad or merrily? What observation madest thou in this case Of his heart's meteors tilting in his face? LUCIANA First he denied you had in him no right. ADRIANA He meant he did me none; the more my spite. LUCIANA Then swore he that he was a stranger here. ADRIANA And true he swore, though yet forsworn he were. LUCIANA Then pleaded I for you. ADRIANA And what said he? LUCIANA That love I begg'd for you he begg'd of me. ADRIANA With what persuasion did he tempt thy love? LUCIANA With words that in an honest suit might move. First he did praise my beauty, then my speech. ADRIANA Didst speak him fair? LUCIANA Have patience, I beseech. ADRIANA I cannot, nor I will not, hold me still; My tongue, though not my heart, shall have his will. He is deformed, crooked, old and sere, Ill-faced, worse bodied, shapeless everywhere; Vicious, ungentle, foolish, blunt, unkind; Stigmatical in making, worse in mind. LUCIANA Who would be jealous then of such a one? No evil lost is wail'd when it is gone. ADRIANA Ah, but I think him better than I say, And yet would herein others' eyes were worse. Far from her nest the lapwing cries away: My heart prays for him, though my tongue do curse. [Enter DROMIO of Syracuse] DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Here! go; the desk, the purse! sweet, now, make haste. LUCIANA How hast thou lost thy breath? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE By running fast. ADRIANA Where is thy master, Dromio? is he well? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE No, he's in Tartar limbo, worse than hell. A devil in an everlasting garment hath him; One whose hard heart is button'd up with steel; A fiend, a fury, pitiless and rough; A wolf, nay, worse, a fellow all in buff; A back-friend, a shoulder-clapper, one that countermands The passages of alleys, creeks and narrow lands; A hound that runs counter and yet draws dryfoot well; One that before the judgement carries poor souls to hell. ADRIANA Why, man, what is the matter? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE I do not know the matter: he is 'rested on the case. ADRIANA What, is he arrested? Tell me at whose suit. DROMIO OF SYRACUSE I know not at whose suit he is arrested well; But he's in a suit of buff which 'rested him, that can I tell. Will you send him, mistress, redemption, the money in his desk? ADRIANA Go fetch it, sister. [Exit Luciana] This I wonder at, That he, unknown to me, should be in debt. Tell me, was he arrested on a band? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Not on a band, but on a stronger thing; A chain, a chain! Do you not hear it ring? ADRIANA What, the chain? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE No, no, the bell: 'tis time that I were gone: It was two ere I left him, and now the clock strikes one. ADRIANA The hours come back! that did I never hear. DROMIO OF SYRACUSE O, yes; if any hour meet a sergeant, a' turns back for very fear. ADRIANA As if Time were in debt! how fondly dost thou reason! DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Time is a very bankrupt, and owes more than he's worth, to season. Nay, he's a thief too: have you not heard men say That Time comes stealing on by night and day? If Time be in debt and theft, and a sergeant in the way, Hath he not reason to turn back an hour in a day? [Re-enter LUCIANA with a purse] ADRIANA Go, Dromio; there's the money, bear it straight; And bring thy master home immediately. Come, sister: I am press'd down with conceit-- Conceit, my comfort and my injury. [Exeunt] THE COMEDY OF ERRORS ACT IV SCENE III A public place. [Enter ANTIPHOLUS of Syracuse] ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE There's not a man I meet but doth salute me As if I were their well-acquainted friend; And every one doth call me by my name. Some tender money to me; some invite me; Some other give me thanks for kindnesses; Some offer me commodities to buy: Even now a tailor call'd me in his shop And show'd me silks that he had bought for me, And therewithal took measure of my body. Sure, these are but imaginary wiles And Lapland sorcerers inhabit here. [Enter DROMIO OF SYRACUSE] DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Master, here's the gold you sent me for. What, have you got the picture of old Adam new-apparelled? ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE What gold is this? what Adam dost thou mean? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Not that Adam that kept the Paradise but that Adam that keeps the prison: he that goes in the calf's skin that was killed for the Prodigal; he that came behind you, sir, like an evil angel, and bid you forsake your liberty. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE I understand thee not. DROMIO OF SYRACUSE No? why, 'tis a plain case: he that went, like a bass-viol, in a case of leather; the man, sir, that, when gentlemen are tired, gives them a sob and 'rests them; he, sir, that takes pity on decayed men and gives them suits of durance; he that sets up his rest to do more exploits with his mace than a morris-pike. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE What, thou meanest an officer? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Ay, sir, the sergeant of the band, he that brings any man to answer it that breaks his band; one that thinks a man always going to bed, and says, 'God give you good rest!' ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Well, sir, there rest in your foolery. Is there any DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Why, sir, I brought you word an hour since that the bark Expedition put forth to-night; and then were you hindered by the sergeant, to tarry for the hoy Delay. Here are the angels that you sent for to deliver you. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE The fellow is distract, and so am I; And here we wander in illusions: Some blessed power deliver us from hence! [Enter a Courtezan] Courtezan Well met, well met, Master Antipholus. I see, sir, you have found the goldsmith now: Is that the chain you promised me to-day? ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Satan, avoid! I charge thee, tempt me not. DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Master, is this Mistress Satan? ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE It is the devil. DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Nay, she is worse, she is the devil's dam; and here she comes in the habit of a light wench: and thereof comes that the wenches say 'God damn me;' that's as much to say 'God make me a light wench.' It is written, they appear to men like angels of light: light is an effect of fire, and fire will burn; ergo, light wenches will burn. Come not near her. Courtezan Your man and you are marvellous merry, sir. Will you go with me? We'll mend our dinner here? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Master, if you do, expect spoon-meat; or bespeak a long spoon. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Why, Dromio? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Marry, he must have a long spoon that must eat with the devil. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Avoid then, fiend! what tell'st thou me of supping? Thou art, as you are all, a sorceress: I conjure thee to leave me and be gone. Courtezan Give me the ring of mine you had at dinner, Or, for my diamond, the chain you promised, And I'll be gone, sir, and not trouble you. DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Some devils ask but the parings of one's nail, A rush, a hair, a drop of blood, a pin, A nut, a cherry-stone; But she, more covetous, would have a chain. Master, be wise: an if you give it her, The devil will shake her chain and fright us with it. Courtezan I pray you, sir, my ring, or else the chain: I hope you do not mean to cheat me so. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Avaunt, thou witch! Come, Dromio, let us go. DROMIO OF SYRACUSE 'Fly pride,' says the peacock: mistress, that you know. [Exeunt Antipholus of Syracuse and Dromio of Syracuse] Courtezan Now, out of doubt Antipholus is mad, Else would he never so demean himself. A ring he hath of mine worth forty ducats, And for the same he promised me a chain: Both one and other he denies me now. The reason that I gather he is mad, Besides this present instance of his rage, Is a mad tale he told to-day at dinner, Of his own doors being shut against his entrance. Belike his wife, acquainted with his fits, On purpose shut the doors against his way. My way is now to hie home to his house, And tell his wife that, being lunatic, He rush'd into my house and took perforce My ring away. This course I fittest choose; For forty ducats is too much to lose. [Exit] THE COMEDY OF ERRORS ACT IV SCENE IV A street. [Enter ANTIPHOLUS of Ephesus and the Officer] ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS Fear me not, man; I will not break away: I'll give thee, ere I leave thee, so much money, To warrant thee, as I am 'rested for. My wife is in a wayward mood to-day, And will not lightly trust the messenger That I should be attach'd in Ephesus, I tell you, 'twill sound harshly in her ears. [Enter DROMIO of Ephesus with a rope's-end] Here comes my man; I think he brings the money. How now, sir! have you that I sent you for? DROMIO OF EPHESUS Here's that, I warrant you, will pay them all. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS But where's the money? DROMIO OF EPHESUS Why, sir, I gave the money for the rope. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS Five hundred ducats, villain, for a rope? DROMIO OF EPHESUS I'll serve you, sir, five hundred at the rate. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS To what end did I bid thee hie thee home? DROMIO OF EPHESUS To a rope's-end, sir; and to that end am I returned. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS And to that end, sir, I will welcome you. [Beating him] Officer Good sir, be patient. DROMIO OF EPHESUS Nay, 'tis for me to be patient; I am in adversity. Officer Good, now, hold thy tongue. DROMIO OF EPHESUS Nay, rather persuade him to hold his hands. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS Thou whoreson, senseless villain! DROMIO OF EPHESUS I would I were senseless, sir, that I might not feel your blows. ANTIPHOLUS Thou art sensible in nothing but blows, and so is an ass. DROMIO OF EPHESUS I am an ass, indeed; you may prove it by my long ears. I have served him from the hour of my nativity to this instant, and have nothing at his hands for my service but blows. When I am cold, he heats me with beating; when I am warm, he cools me with beating; I am waked with it when I sleep; raised with it when I sit; driven out of doors with it when I go from home; welcomed home with it when I return; nay, I bear it on my shoulders, as a beggar wont her brat; and, I think when he hath lamed me, I shall beg with it from door to door. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS Come, go along; my wife is coming yonder. [Enter ADRIANA, LUCIANA, the Courtezan, and PINCH] DROMIO OF EPHESUS Mistress, 'respice finem,' respect your end; or rather, the prophecy like the parrot, 'beware the rope's-end.' ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS Wilt thou still talk? [Beating him] Courtezan How say you now? is not your husband mad? ADRIANA His incivility confirms no less. Good Doctor Pinch, you are a conjurer; Establish him in his true sense again, And I will please you what you will demand. LUCIANA Alas, how fiery and how sharp he looks! Courtezan Mark how he trembles in his ecstasy! PINCH Give me your hand and let me feel your pulse. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS There is my hand, and let it feel your ear. [Striking him] PINCH I charge thee, Satan, housed within this man, To yield possession to my holy prayers And to thy state of darkness hie thee straight: I conjure thee by all the saints in heaven! ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS Peace, doting wizard, peace! I am not mad. ADRIANA O, that thou wert not, poor distressed soul! ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS You minion, you, are these your customers? Did this companion with the saffron face Revel and feast it at my house to-day, Whilst upon me the guilty doors were shut And I denied to enter in my house? ADRIANA O husband, God doth know you dined at home; Where would you had remain'd until this time, Free from these slanders and this open shame! ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS Dined at home! Thou villain, what sayest thou? DROMIO OF EPHESUS Sir, sooth to say, you did not dine at home. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS Were not my doors lock'd up and I shut out? DROMIO OF EPHESUS Perdie, your doors were lock'd and you shut out. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS And did not she herself revile me there? DROMIO OF EPHESUS Sans fable, she herself reviled you there. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS Did not her kitchen-maid rail, taunt, and scorn me? DROMIO OF EPHESUS Certes, she did; the kitchen-vestal scorn'd you. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS And did not I in rage depart from thence? DROMIO OF EPHESUS In verity you did; my bones bear witness, That since have felt the vigour of his rage. ADRIANA Is't good to soothe him in these contraries? PINCH It is no shame: the fellow finds his vein, And yielding to him humours well his frenzy. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS Thou hast suborn'd the goldsmith to arrest me. ADRIANA Alas, I sent you money to redeem you, By Dromio here, who came in haste for it. DROMIO OF EPHESUS Money by me! heart and goodwill you might; But surely master, not a rag of money. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS Went'st not thou to her for a purse of ducats? ADRIANA He came to me and I deliver'd it. LUCIANA And I am witness with her that she did. DROMIO OF EPHESUS God and the rope-maker bear me witness That I was sent for nothing but a rope! PINCH Mistress, both man and master is possess'd; I know it by their pale and deadly looks: They must be bound and laid in some dark room. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS Say, wherefore didst thou lock me forth to-day? And why dost thou deny the bag of gold? ADRIANA I did not, gentle husband, lock thee forth. DROMIO OF EPHESUS And, gentle master, I received no gold; But I confess, sir, that we were lock'd out. ADRIANA Dissembling villain, thou speak'st false in both. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS Dissembling harlot, thou art false in all; And art confederate with a damned pack To make a loathsome abject scorn of me: But with these nails I'll pluck out these false eyes That would behold in me this shameful sport. [Enter three or four, and offer to bind him. He strives] ADRIANA O, bind him, bind him! let him not come near me. PINCH More company! The fiend is strong within him. LUCIANA Ay me, poor man, how pale and wan he looks! ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS What, will you murder me? Thou gaoler, thou, I am thy prisoner: wilt thou suffer them To make a rescue? Officer Masters, let him go He is my prisoner, and you shall not have him. PINCH Go bind this man, for he is frantic too. [They offer to bind Dromio of Ephesus] ADRIANA What wilt thou do, thou peevish officer? Hast thou delight to see a wretched man Do outrage and displeasure to himself? Officer He is my prisoner: if I let him go, The debt he owes will be required of me. ADRIANA I will discharge thee ere I go from thee: Bear me forthwith unto his creditor, And, knowing how the debt grows, I will pay it. Good master doctor, see him safe convey'd Home to my house. O most unhappy day! ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS O most unhappy strumpet! DROMIO OF EPHESUS Master, I am here entered in bond for you. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS Out on thee, villain! wherefore dost thou mad me? DROMIO OF EPHESUS Will you be bound for nothing? be mad, good master: cry 'The devil!' LUCIANA God help, poor souls, how idly do they talk! ADRIANA Go bear him hence. Sister, go you with me. [Exeunt all but Adriana, Luciana, Officer and Courtezan] Say now, whose suit is he arrested at? Officer One Angelo, a goldsmith: do you know him? ADRIANA I know the man. What is the sum he owes? Officer Two hundred ducats. ADRIANA Say, how grows it due? Officer Due for a chain your husband had of him. ADRIANA He did bespeak a chain for me, but had it not. Courtezan When as your husband all in rage to-day Came to my house and took away my ring-- The ring I saw upon his finger now-- Straight after did I meet him with a chain. ADRIANA It may be so, but I did never see it. Come, gaoler, bring me where the goldsmith is: I long to know the truth hereof at large. [Enter ANTIPHOLUS of Syracuse with his rapier drawn, and DROMIO of Syracuse] LUCIANA God, for thy mercy! they are loose again. ADRIANA And come with naked swords. Let's call more help to have them bound again. Officer Away! they'll kill us. [Exeunt all but Antipholus of Syracuse and Dromio of Syracuse] ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE I see these witches are afraid of swords. DROMIO OF SYRACUSE She that would be your wife now ran from you. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Come to the Centaur; fetch our stuff from thence: I long that we were safe and sound aboard. DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Faith, stay here this night; they will surely do us no harm: you saw they speak us fair, give us gold: methinks they are such a gentle nation that, but for the mountain of mad flesh that claims marriage of me, I could find in my heart to stay here still and turn witch. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE I will not stay to-night for all the town; Therefore away, to get our stuff aboard. [Exeunt] THE COMEDY OF ERRORS ACT V SCENE I A street before a Priory. [Enter Second Merchant and ANGELO] ANGELO I am sorry, sir, that I have hinder'd you; But, I protest, he had the chain of me, Though most dishonestly he doth deny it. Second Merchant How is the man esteemed here in the city? ANGELO Of very reverend reputation, sir, Of credit infinite, highly beloved, Second to none that lives here in the city: His word might bear my wealth at any time. Second Merchant Speak softly; yonder, as I think, he walks. [Enter ANTIPHOLUS of Syracuse and DROMIO of Syracuse] ANGELO 'Tis so; and that self chain about his neck Which he forswore most monstrously to have. Good sir, draw near to me, I'll speak to him. Signior Antipholus, I wonder much That you would put me to this shame and trouble; And, not without some scandal to yourself, With circumstance and oaths so to deny This chain which now you wear so openly: Beside the charge, the shame, imprisonment, You have done wrong to this my honest friend, Who, but for staying on our controversy, Had hoisted sail and put to sea to-day: This chain you had of me; can you deny it? ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE I think I had; I never did deny it. Second Merchant Yes, that you did, sir, and forswore it too. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Who heard me to deny it or forswear it? Second Merchant These ears of mine, thou know'st did hear thee. Fie on thee, wretch! 'tis pity that thou livest To walk where any honest man resort. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Thou art a villain to impeach me thus: I'll prove mine honour and mine honesty Against thee presently, if thou darest stand. Second Merchant I dare, and do defy thee for a villain. [They draw] [Enter ADRIANA, LUCIANA, the Courtezan, and others] ADRIANA Hold, hurt him not, for God's sake! he is mad. Some get within him, take his sword away: Bind Dromio too, and bear them to my house. DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Run, master, run; for God's sake, take a house! This is some priory. In, or we are spoil'd! [Exeunt Antipholus of Syracuse and Dromio of Syracuse to the Priory] [Enter the Lady Abbess, AEMILIA] AEMELIA Be quiet, people. Wherefore throng you hither? ADRIANA To fetch my poor distracted husband hence. Let us come in, that we may bind him fast And bear him home for his recovery. ANGELO I knew he was not in his perfect wits. Second Merchant I am sorry now that I did draw on him. AEMELIA How long hath this possession held the man? ADRIANA This week he hath been heavy, sour, sad, And much different from the man he was; But till this afternoon his passion Ne'er brake into extremity of rage. AEMELIA Hath he not lost much wealth by wreck of sea? Buried some dear friend? Hath not else his eye Stray'd his affection in unlawful love? A sin prevailing much in youthful men, Who give their eyes the liberty of gazing. Which of these sorrows is he subject to? ADRIANA To none of these, except it be the last; Namely, some love that drew him oft from home. AEMELIA You should for that have reprehended him. ADRIANA Why, so I did. AEMELIA Ay, but not rough enough. ADRIANA As roughly as my modesty would let me. AEMELIA Haply, in private. ADRIANA And in assemblies too. AEMELIA Ay, but not enough. ADRIANA It was the copy of our conference: In bed he slept not for my urging it; At board he fed not for my urging it; Alone, it was the subject of my theme; In company I often glanced it; Still did I tell him it was vile and bad. AEMELIA And thereof came it that the man was mad. The venom clamours of a jealous woman Poisons more deadly than a mad dog's tooth. It seems his sleeps were hinder'd by thy railing, And therefore comes it that his head is light. Thou say'st his meat was sauced with thy upbraidings: Unquiet meals make ill digestions; Thereof the raging fire of fever bred; And what's a fever but a fit of madness? Thou say'st his sports were hinderd by thy brawls: Sweet recreation barr'd, what doth ensue But moody and dull melancholy, Kinsman to grim and comfortless despair, And at her heels a huge infectious troop Of pale distemperatures and foes to life? In food, in sport and life-preserving rest To be disturb'd, would mad or man or beast: The consequence is then thy jealous fits Have scared thy husband from the use of wits. LUCIANA She never reprehended him but mildly, When he demean'd himself rough, rude and wildly. Why bear you these rebukes and answer not? ADRIANA She did betray me to my own reproof. Good people enter and lay hold on him. AEMELIA No, not a creature enters in my house. ADRIANA Then let your servants bring my husband forth. AEMELIA Neither: he took this place for sanctuary, And it shall privilege him from your hands Till I have brought him to his wits again, Or lose my labour in assaying it. ADRIANA I will attend my husband, be his nurse, Diet his sickness, for it is my office, And will have no attorney but myself; And therefore let me have him home with me. AEMELIA Be patient; for I will not let him stir Till I have used the approved means I have, With wholesome syrups, drugs and holy prayers, To make of him a formal man again: It is a branch and parcel of mine oath, A charitable duty of my order. Therefore depart and leave him here with me. ADRIANA I will not hence and leave my husband here: And ill it doth beseem your holiness To separate the husband and the wife. AEMELIA Be quiet and depart: thou shalt not have him. [Exit] LUCIANA Complain unto the duke of this indignity. ADRIANA Come, go: I will fall prostrate at his feet And never rise until my tears and prayers Have won his grace to come in person hither And take perforce my husband from the abbess. Second Merchant By this, I think, the dial points at five: Anon, I'm sure, the duke himself in person Comes this way to the melancholy vale, The place of death and sorry execution, Behind the ditches of the abbey here. ANGELO Upon what cause? Second Merchant To see a reverend Syracusian merchant, Who put unluckily into this bay Against the laws and statutes of this town, Beheaded publicly for his offence. ANGELO See where they come: we will behold his death. LUCIANA Kneel to the duke before he pass the abbey. [Enter DUKE SOLINUS, attended; AEGEON bareheaded; with the Headsman and other Officers] DUKE SOLINUS Yet once again proclaim it publicly, If any friend will pay the sum for him, He shall not die; so much we tender him. ADRIANA Justice, most sacred duke, against the abbess! DUKE SOLINUS She is a virtuous and a reverend lady: It cannot be that she hath done thee wrong. ADRIANA May it please your grace, Antipholus, my husband, Whom I made lord of me and all I had, At your important letters,--this ill day A most outrageous fit of madness took him; That desperately he hurried through the street, With him his bondman, all as mad as he-- Doing displeasure to the citizens By rushing in their houses, bearing thence Rings, jewels, any thing his rage did like. Once did I get him bound and sent him home, Whilst to take order for the wrongs I went, That here and there his fury had committed. Anon, I wot not by what strong escape, He broke from those that had the guard of him; And with his mad attendant and himself, Each one with ireful passion, with drawn swords, Met us again and madly bent on us, Chased us away; till, raising of more aid, We came again to bind them. Then they fled Into this abbey, whither we pursued them: And here the abbess shuts the gates on us And will not suffer us to fetch him out, Nor send him forth that we may bear him hence. Therefore, most gracious duke, with thy command Let him be brought forth and borne hence for help. DUKE SOLINUS Long since thy husband served me in my wars, And I to thee engaged a prince's word, When thou didst make him master of thy bed, To do him all the grace and good I could. Go, some of you, knock at the abbey-gate And bid the lady abbess come to me. I will determine this before I stir. [Enter a Servant] Servant O mistress, mistress, shift and save yourself! My master and his man are both broke loose, Beaten the maids a-row and bound the doctor Whose beard they have singed off with brands of fire; And ever, as it blazed, they threw on him Great pails of puddled mire to quench the hair: My master preaches patience to him and the while His man with scissors nicks him like a fool, And sure, unless you send some present help, Between them they will kill the conjurer. ADRIANA Peace, fool! thy master and his man are here, And that is false thou dost report to us. Servant Mistress, upon my life, I tell you true; I have not breathed almost since I did see it. He cries for you, and vows, if he can take you, To scorch your face and to disfigure you. [Cry within] Hark, hark! I hear him, mistress. fly, be gone! DUKE SOLINUS Come, stand by me; fear nothing. Guard with halberds! ADRIANA Ay me, it is my husband! Witness you, That he is borne about invisible: Even now we housed him in the abbey here; And now he's there, past thought of human reason. [Enter ANTIPHOLUS of Ephesus and DROMIO of Ephesus] ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS Justice, most gracious duke, O, grant me justice! Even for the service that long since I did thee, When I bestrid thee in the wars and took Deep scars to save thy life; even for the blood That then I lost for thee, now grant me justice. AEGEON Unless the fear of death doth make me dote, I see my son Antipholus and Dromio. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS Justice, sweet prince, against that woman there! She whom thou gavest to me to be my wife, That hath abused and dishonour'd me Even in the strength and height of injury! Beyond imagination is the wrong That she this day hath shameless thrown on me. DUKE SOLINUS Discover how, and thou shalt find me just. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS This day, great duke, she shut the doors upon me, While she with harlots feasted in my house. DUKE SOLINUS A grievous fault! Say, woman, didst thou so? ADRIANA No, my good lord: myself, he and my sister To-day did dine together. So befall my soul As this is false he burdens me withal! LUCIANA Ne'er may I look on day, nor sleep on night, But she tells to your highness simple truth! ANGELO O perjured woman! They are both forsworn: In this the madman justly chargeth them. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS My liege, I am advised what I say, Neither disturbed with the effect of wine, Nor heady-rash, provoked with raging ire, Albeit my wrongs might make one wiser mad. This woman lock'd me out this day from dinner: That goldsmith there, were he not pack'd with her, Could witness it, for he was with me then; Who parted with me to go fetch a chain, Promising to bring it to the Porpentine, Where Balthazar and I did dine together. Our dinner done, and he not coming thither, I went to seek him: in the street I met him And in his company that gentleman. There did this perjured goldsmith swear me down That I this day of him received the chain, Which, God he knows, I saw not: for the which He did arrest me with an officer. I did obey, and sent my peasant home For certain ducats: he with none return'd Then fairly I bespoke the officer To go in person with me to my house. By the way we met My wife, her sister, and a rabble more Of vile confederates. Along with them They brought one Pinch, a hungry lean-faced villain, A mere anatomy, a mountebank, A threadbare juggler and a fortune-teller, A needy, hollow-eyed, sharp-looking wretch, A dead-looking man: this pernicious slave, Forsooth, took on him as a conjurer, And, gazing in mine eyes, feeling my pulse, And with no face, as 'twere, outfacing me, Cries out, I was possess'd. Then all together They fell upon me, bound me, bore me thence And in a dark and dankish vault at home There left me and my man, both bound together; Till, gnawing with my teeth my bonds in sunder, I gain'd my freedom, and immediately Ran hither to your grace; whom I beseech To give me ample satisfaction For these deep shames and great indignities. ANGELO My lord, in truth, thus far I witness with him, That he dined not at home, but was lock'd out. DUKE SOLINUS But had he such a chain of thee or no? ANGELO He had, my lord: and when he ran in here, These people saw the chain about his neck. Second Merchant Besides, I will be sworn these ears of mine Heard you confess you had the chain of him After you first forswore it on the mart: And thereupon I drew my sword on you; And then you fled into this abbey here, From whence, I think, you are come by miracle. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS I never came within these abbey-walls, Nor ever didst thou draw thy sword on me: I never saw the chain, so help me Heaven! And this is false you burden me withal. DUKE SOLINUS Why, what an intricate impeach is this! I think you all have drunk of Circe's cup. If here you housed him, here he would have been; If he were mad, he would not plead so coldly: You say he dined at home; the goldsmith here Denies that saying. Sirrah, what say you? DROMIO OF EPHESUS Sir, he dined with her there, at the Porpentine. Courtezan He did, and from my finger snatch'd that ring. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS 'Tis true, my liege; this ring I had of her. DUKE SOLINUS Saw'st thou him enter at the abbey here? Courtezan As sure, my liege, as I do see your grace. DUKE SOLINUS Why, this is strange. Go call the abbess hither. I think you are all mated or stark mad. [Exit one to Abbess] AEGEON Most mighty duke, vouchsafe me speak a word: Haply I see a friend will save my life And pay the sum that may deliver me. DUKE SOLINUS Speak freely, Syracusian, what thou wilt. AEGEON Is not your name, sir, call'd Antipholus? And is not that your bondman, Dromio? DROMIO OF EPHESUS Within this hour I was his bondman sir, But he, I thank him, gnaw'd in two my cords: Now am I Dromio and his man unbound. AEGEON I am sure you both of you remember me. DROMIO OF EPHESUS Ourselves we do remember, sir, by you; For lately we were bound, as you are now You are not Pinch's patient, are you, sir? AEGEON Why look you strange on me? you know me well. ANTIPHOLUS I never saw you in my life till now. AEGEON O, grief hath changed me since you saw me last, And careful hours with time's deformed hand Have written strange defeatures in my face: But tell me yet, dost thou not know my voice? ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS Neither. AEGEON Dromio, nor thou? DROMIO OF EPHESUS No, trust me, sir, nor I. AEGEON I am sure thou dost. DROMIO OF EPHESUS Ay, sir, but I am sure I do not; and whatsoever a man denies, you are now bound to believe him. AEGEON Not know my voice! O time's extremity, Hast thou so crack'd and splitted my poor tongue In seven short years, that here my only son Knows not my feeble key of untuned cares? Though now this grained face of mine be hid In sap-consuming winter's drizzled snow, And all the conduits of my blood froze up, Yet hath my night of life some memory, My wasting lamps some fading glimmer left, My dull deaf ears a little use to hear: All these old witnesses--I cannot err-- Tell me thou art my son Antipholus. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS I never saw my father in my life. AEGEON But seven years since, in Syracusa, boy, Thou know'st we parted: but perhaps, my son, Thou shamest to acknowledge me in misery. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS The duke and all that know me in the city Can witness with me that it is not so I ne'er saw Syracusa in my life. DUKE SOLINUS I tell thee, Syracusian, twenty years Have I been patron to Antipholus, During which time he ne'er saw Syracusa: I see thy age and dangers make thee dote. [Re-enter AEMILIA, with ANTIPHOLUS of Syracuse and DROMIO of Syracuse] AEMELIA Most mighty duke, behold a man much wrong'd. [All gather to see them] ADRIANA I see two husbands, or mine eyes deceive me. DUKE SOLINUS One of these men is Genius to the other; And so of these. Which is the natural man, And which the spirit? who deciphers them? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE I, sir, am Dromio; command him away. DROMIO OF EPHESUS I, sir, am Dromio; pray, let me stay. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE AEgeon art thou not? or else his ghost? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE O, my old master! who hath bound him here? AEMELIA Whoever bound him, I will loose his bonds And gain a husband by his liberty. Speak, old AEgeon, if thou be'st the man That hadst a wife once call'd AEmilia That bore thee at a burden two fair sons: O, if thou be'st the same AEgeon, speak, And speak unto the same AEmilia! AEGEON If I dream not, thou art AEmilia: If thou art she, tell me where is that son That floated with thee on the fatal raft? AEMELIA By men of Epidamnum he and I And the twin Dromio all were taken up; But by and by rude fishermen of Corinth By force took Dromio and my son from them And me they left with those of Epidamnum. What then became of them I cannot tell I to this fortune that you see me in. DUKE SOLINUS Why, here begins his morning story right; These two Antipholuses, these two so like, And these two Dromios, one in semblance,-- Besides her urging of her wreck at sea,-- These are the parents to these children, Which accidentally are met together. Antipholus, thou camest from Corinth first? ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE No, sir, not I; I came from Syracuse. DUKE SOLINUS Stay, stand apart; I know not which is which. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS I came from Corinth, my most gracious lord,-- DROMIO OF EPHESUS And I with him. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS Brought to this town by that most famous warrior, Duke Menaphon, your most renowned uncle. ADRIANA Which of you two did dine with me to-day? ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE I, gentle mistress. ADRIANA And are not you my husband? ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS No; I say nay to that. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE And so do I; yet did she call me so: And this fair gentlewoman, her sister here, Did call me brother. [To Luciana] What I told you then, I hope I shall have leisure to make good; If this be not a dream I see and hear. ANGELO That is the chain, sir, which you had of me. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE I think it be, sir; I deny it not. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS And you, sir, for this chain arrested me. ANGELO I think I did, sir; I deny it not. ADRIANA I sent you money, sir, to be your bail, By Dromio; but I think he brought it not. DROMIO OF EPHESUS No, none by me. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE This purse of ducats I received from you, And Dromio, my man, did bring them me. I see we still did meet each other's man, And I was ta'en for him, and he for me, And thereupon these errors are arose. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS These ducats pawn I for my father here. DUKE SOLINUS It shall not need; thy father hath his life. Courtezan Sir, I must have that diamond from you. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS There, take it; and much thanks for my good cheer. AEMELIA Renowned duke, vouchsafe to take the pains To go with us into the abbey here And hear at large discoursed all our fortunes: And all that are assembled in this place, That by this sympathized one day's error Have suffer'd wrong, go keep us company, And we shall make full satisfaction. Thirty-three years have I but gone in travail Of you, my sons; and till this present hour My heavy burden ne'er delivered. The duke, my husband and my children both, And you the calendars of their nativity, Go to a gossips' feast and go with me; After so long grief, such festivity! DUKE SOLINUS With all my heart, I'll gossip at this feast. [Exeunt all but Antipholus of Syracuse, Antipholus of Ephesus, Dromio of Syracuse and Dromio of Ephesus] DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Master, shall I fetch your stuff from shipboard? ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS Dromio, what stuff of mine hast thou embark'd? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Your goods that lay at host, sir, in the Centaur. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE He speaks to me. I am your master, Dromio: Come, go with us; we'll look to that anon: Embrace thy brother there; rejoice with him. [Exeunt Antipholus of Syracuse and Antipholus of Ephesus] DROMIO OF SYRACUSE There is a fat friend at your master's house, That kitchen'd me for you to-day at dinner: She now shall be my sister, not my wife. DROMIO OF EPHESUS Methinks you are my glass, and not my brother: I see by you I am a sweet-faced youth. Will you walk in to see their gossiping? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE Not I, sir; you are my elder. DROMIO OF EPHESUS That's a question: how shall we try it? DROMIO OF SYRACUSE We'll draw cuts for the senior: till then lead thou first. DROMIO OF EPHESUS Nay, then, thus: We came into the world like brother and brother; And now let's go hand in hand, not one before another. [Exeunt] CYMBELINE DRAMATIS PERSONAE CYMBELINE king of Britain. CLOTEN son to the Queen by a former husband. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS a gentleman, husband to Imogen. BELARIUS a banished lord, disguised under the name of Morgan. GUIDERIUS | sons to Cymbeline, disguised under the names | of Polydote and Cadwal, supposed sons to ARVIRAGUS | Morgan. PHILARIO friend to Posthumus, | | Italians. IACHIMO friend to Philario, | CAIUS LUCIUS general of the Roman forces. PISANIO servant to Posthumus. CORNELIUS a physician. A Roman Captain. (Captain:) Two British Captains. (First Captain:) (Second Captain:) A Frenchman, friend to Philario. (Frenchman:) Two Lords of Cymbeline's court. (First Lord:) (Second Lord:) Two Gentlemen of the same. (First Gentleman:) (Second Gentleman:) Two Gaolers. (First Gaoler:) (Second Gaoler:) QUEEN wife to Cymbeline. IMOGEN daughter to Cymbeline by a former queen. HELEN a lady attending on Imogen. Lords, Ladies, Roman Senators, Tribunes, a Soothsayer, a Dutchman, a Spaniard, Musicians, Officers, Captains, Soldiers, Messengers, and other Attendants. (Lord:) (Lady:) (First Lady:) (First Senator:) (Second Senator:) (First Tribune:) (Soothsayer:) (Messenger:) Apparitions. (Sicilius Leonatus:) (Mother:) (First Brother:) (Second Brother:) (Jupiter:) SCENE Britain; Rome. CYMBELINE ACT I SCENE I Britain. The garden of Cymbeline's palace. [Enter two Gentlemen] First Gentleman You do not meet a man but frowns: our bloods No more obey the heavens than our courtiers Still seem as does the king. Second Gentleman But what's the matter? First Gentleman His daughter, and the heir of's kingdom, whom He purposed to his wife's sole son--a widow That late he married--hath referr'd herself Unto a poor but worthy gentleman: she's wedded; Her husband banish'd; she imprison'd: all Is outward sorrow; though I think the king Be touch'd at very heart. Second Gentleman None but the king? First Gentleman He that hath lost her too; so is the queen, That most desired the match; but not a courtier, Although they wear their faces to the bent Of the king's look's, hath a heart that is not Glad at the thing they scowl at. Second Gentleman And why so? First Gentleman He that hath miss'd the princess is a thing Too bad for bad report: and he that hath her-- I mean, that married her, alack, good man! And therefore banish'd--is a creature such As, to seek through the regions of the earth For one his like, there would be something failing In him that should compare. I do not think So fair an outward and such stuff within Endows a man but he. Second Gentleman You speak him far. First Gentleman I do extend him, sir, within himself, Crush him together rather than unfold His measure duly. Second Gentleman What's his name and birth? First Gentleman I cannot delve him to the root: his father Was call'd Sicilius, who did join his honour Against the Romans with Cassibelan, But had his titles by Tenantius whom He served with glory and admired success, So gain'd the sur-addition Leonatus; And had, besides this gentleman in question, Two other sons, who in the wars o' the time Died with their swords in hand; for which their father, Then old and fond of issue, took such sorrow That he quit being, and his gentle lady, Big of this gentleman our theme, deceased As he was born. The king he takes the babe To his protection, calls him Posthumus Leonatus, Breeds him and makes him of his bed-chamber, Puts to him all the learnings that his time Could make him the receiver of; which he took, As we do air, fast as 'twas minister'd, And in's spring became a harvest, lived in court-- Which rare it is to do--most praised, most loved, A sample to the youngest, to the more mature A glass that feated them, and to the graver A child that guided dotards; to his mistress, For whom he now is banish'd, her own price Proclaims how she esteem'd him and his virtue; By her election may be truly read What kind of man he is. Second Gentleman I honour him Even out of your report. But, pray you, tell me, Is she sole child to the king? First Gentleman His only child. He had two sons: if this be worth your hearing, Mark it: the eldest of them at three years old, I' the swathing-clothes the other, from their nursery Were stol'n, and to this hour no guess in knowledge Which way they went. Second Gentleman How long is this ago? First Gentleman Some twenty years. Second Gentleman That a king's children should be so convey'd, So slackly guarded, and the search so slow, That could not trace them! First Gentleman Howsoe'er 'tis strange, Or that the negligence may well be laugh'd at, Yet is it true, sir. Second Gentleman I do well believe you. First Gentleman We must forbear: here comes the gentleman, The queen, and princess. [Exeunt] [Enter the QUEEN, POSTHUMUS LEONATUS, and IMOGEN] QUEEN No, be assured you shall not find me, daughter, After the slander of most stepmothers, Evil-eyed unto you: you're my prisoner, but Your gaoler shall deliver you the keys That lock up your restraint. For you, Posthumus, So soon as I can win the offended king, I will be known your advocate: marry, yet The fire of rage is in him, and 'twere good You lean'd unto his sentence with what patience Your wisdom may inform you. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS Please your highness, I will from hence to-day. QUEEN You know the peril. I'll fetch a turn about the garden, pitying The pangs of barr'd affections, though the king Hath charged you should not speak together. [Exit] IMOGEN O Dissembling courtesy! How fine this tyrant Can tickle where she wounds! My dearest husband, I something fear my father's wrath; but nothing-- Always reserved my holy duty--what His rage can do on me: you must be gone; And I shall here abide the hourly shot Of angry eyes, not comforted to live, But that there is this jewel in the world That I may see again. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS My queen! my mistress! O lady, weep no more, lest I give cause To be suspected of more tenderness Than doth become a man. I will remain The loyal'st husband that did e'er plight troth: My residence in Rome at one Philario's, Who to my father was a friend, to me Known but by letter: thither write, my queen, And with mine eyes I'll drink the words you send, Though ink be made of gall. [Re-enter QUEEN] QUEEN Be brief, I pray you: If the king come, I shall incur I know not How much of his displeasure. [Aside] Yet I'll move him To walk this way: I never do him wrong, But he does buy my injuries, to be friends; Pays dear for my offences. [Exit] POSTHUMUS LEONATUS Should we be taking leave As long a term as yet we have to live, The loathness to depart would grow. Adieu! IMOGEN Nay, stay a little: Were you but riding forth to air yourself, Such parting were too petty. Look here, love; This diamond was my mother's: take it, heart; But keep it till you woo another wife, When Imogen is dead. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS How, how! another? You gentle gods, give me but this I have, And sear up my embracements from a next With bonds of death! [Putting on the ring] Remain, remain thou here While sense can keep it on. And, sweetest, fairest, As I my poor self did exchange for you, To your so infinite loss, so in our trifles I still win of you: for my sake wear this; It is a manacle of love; I'll place it Upon this fairest prisoner. [Putting a bracelet upon her arm] IMOGEN O the gods! When shall we see again? [Enter CYMBELINE and Lords] POSTHUMUS LEONATUS Alack, the king! CYMBELINE Thou basest thing, avoid! hence, from my sight! If after this command thou fraught the court With thy unworthiness, thou diest: away! Thou'rt poison to my blood. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS The gods protect you! And bless the good remainders of the court! I am gone. [Exit] IMOGEN There cannot be a pinch in death More sharp than this is. CYMBELINE O disloyal thing, That shouldst repair my youth, thou heap'st A year's age on me. IMOGEN I beseech you, sir, Harm not yourself with your vexation I am senseless of your wrath; a touch more rare Subdues all pangs, all fears. CYMBELINE Past grace? obedience? IMOGEN Past hope, and in despair; that way, past grace. CYMBELINE That mightst have had the sole son of my queen! IMOGEN O blest, that I might not! I chose an eagle, And did avoid a puttock. CYMBELINE Thou took'st a beggar; wouldst have made my throne A seat for baseness. IMOGEN No; I rather added A lustre to it. CYMBELINE O thou vile one! IMOGEN Sir, It is your fault that I have loved Posthumus: You bred him as my playfellow, and he is A man worth any woman, overbuys me Almost the sum he pays. CYMBELINE What, art thou mad? IMOGEN Almost, sir: heaven restore me! Would I were A neat-herd's daughter, and my Leonatus Our neighbour shepherd's son! CYMBELINE Thou foolish thing! [Re-enter QUEEN] They were again together: you have done Not after our command. Away with her, And pen her up. QUEEN Beseech your patience. Peace, Dear lady daughter, peace! Sweet sovereign, Leave us to ourselves; and make yourself some comfort Out of your best advice. CYMBELINE Nay, let her languish A drop of blood a day; and, being aged, Die of this folly! [Exeunt CYMBELINE and Lords] QUEEN Fie! you must give way. [Enter PISANIO] Here is your servant. How now, sir! What news? PISANIO My lord your son drew on my master. QUEEN Ha! No harm, I trust, is done? PISANIO There might have been, But that my master rather play'd than fought And had no help of anger: they were parted By gentlemen at hand. QUEEN I am very glad on't. IMOGEN Your son's my father's friend; he takes his part. To draw upon an exile! O brave sir! I would they were in Afric both together; Myself by with a needle, that I might prick The goer-back. Why came you from your master? PISANIO On his command: he would not suffer me To bring him to the haven; left these notes Of what commands I should be subject to, When 't pleased you to employ me. QUEEN This hath been Your faithful servant: I dare lay mine honour He will remain so. PISANIO I humbly thank your highness. QUEEN Pray, walk awhile. IMOGEN About some half-hour hence, I pray you, speak with me: you shall at least Go see my lord aboard: for this time leave me. [Exeunt] CYMBELINE ACT I SCENE II The same. A public place. [Enter CLOTEN and two Lords] First Lord Sir, I would advise you to shift a shirt; the violence of action hath made you reek as a sacrifice: where air comes out, air comes in: there's none abroad so wholesome as that you vent. CLOTEN If my shirt were bloody, then to shift it. Have I hurt him? Second Lord [Aside] No, 'faith; not so much as his patience. First Lord Hurt him! his body's a passable carcass, if he be not hurt: it is a thoroughfare for steel, if it be not hurt. Second Lord [Aside] His steel was in debt; it went o' the backside the town. CLOTEN The villain would not stand me. Second Lord [Aside] No; but he fled forward still, toward your face. First Lord Stand you! You have land enough of your own: but he added to your having; gave you some ground. Second Lord [Aside] As many inches as you have oceans. Puppies! CLOTEN I would they had not come between us. Second Lord [Aside] So would I, till you had measured how long a fool you were upon the ground. CLOTEN And that she should love this fellow and refuse me! Second Lord [Aside] If it be a sin to make a true election, she is damned. First Lord Sir, as I told you always, her beauty and her brain go not together: she's a good sign, but I have seen small reflection of her wit. Second Lord [Aside] She shines not upon fools, lest the reflection should hurt her. CLOTEN Come, I'll to my chamber. Would there had been some hurt done! Second Lord [Aside] I wish not so; unless it had been the fall of an ass, which is no great hurt. CLOTEN You'll go with us? First Lord I'll attend your lordship. CLOTEN Nay, come, let's go together. Second Lord Well, my lord. [Exeunt] CYMBELINE ACT I SCENE III A room in Cymbeline's palace. [Enter IMOGEN and PISANIO] IMOGEN I would thou grew'st unto the shores o' the haven, And question'dst every sail: if he should write And not have it, 'twere a paper lost, As offer'd mercy is. What was the last That he spake to thee? PISANIO It was his queen, his queen! IMOGEN Then waved his handkerchief? PISANIO And kiss'd it, madam. IMOGEN Senseless Linen! happier therein than I! And that was all? PISANIO No, madam; for so long As he could make me with this eye or ear Distinguish him from others, he did keep The deck, with glove, or hat, or handkerchief, Still waving, as the fits and stirs of 's mind Could best express how slow his soul sail'd on, How swift his ship. IMOGEN Thou shouldst have made him As little as a crow, or less, ere left To after-eye him. PISANIO Madam, so I did. IMOGEN I would have broke mine eye-strings; crack'd them, but To look upon him, till the diminution Of space had pointed him sharp as my needle, Nay, follow'd him, till he had melted from The smallness of a gnat to air, and then Have turn'd mine eye and wept. But, good Pisanio, When shall we hear from him? PISANIO Be assured, madam, With his next vantage. IMOGEN I did not take my leave of him, but had Most pretty things to say: ere I could tell him How I would think on him at certain hours Such thoughts and such, or I could make him swear The shes of Italy should not betray Mine interest and his honour, or have charged him, At the sixth hour of morn, at noon, at midnight, To encounter me with orisons, for then I am in heaven for him; or ere I could Give him that parting kiss which I had set Betwixt two charming words, comes in my father And like the tyrannous breathing of the north Shakes all our buds from growing. [Enter a Lady] Lady The queen, madam, Desires your highness' company. IMOGEN Those things I bid you do, get them dispatch'd. I will attend the queen. PISANIO Madam, I shall. [Exeunt] CYMBELINE ACT I SCENE IV Rome. Philario's house. [Enter PHILARIO, IACHIMO, a Frenchman, a Dutchman, and a Spaniard] IACHIMO Believe it, sir, I have seen him in Britain: he was then of a crescent note, expected to prove so worthy as since he hath been allowed the name of; but I could then have looked on him without the help of admiration, though the catalogue of his endowments had been tabled by his side and I to peruse him by items. PHILARIO You speak of him when he was less furnished than now he is with that which makes him both without and within. Frenchman I have seen him in France: we had very many there could behold the sun with as firm eyes as he. IACHIMO This matter of marrying his king's daughter, wherein he must be weighed rather by her value than his own, words him, I doubt not, a great deal from the matter. Frenchman And then his banishment. IACHIMO Ay, and the approbation of those that weep this lamentable divorce under her colours are wonderfully to extend him; be it but to fortify her judgment, which else an easy battery might lay flat, for taking a beggar without less quality. But how comes it he is to sojourn with you? How creeps acquaintance? PHILARIO His father and I were soldiers together; to whom I have been often bound for no less than my life. Here comes the Briton: let him be so entertained amongst you as suits, with gentlemen of your knowing, to a stranger of his quality. [Enter POSTHUMUS LEONATUS] I beseech you all, be better known to this gentleman; whom I commend to you as a noble friend of mine: how worthy he is I will leave to appear hereafter, rather than story him in his own hearing. Frenchman Sir, we have known together in Orleans. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS Since when I have been debtor to you for courtesies, which I will be ever to pay and yet pay still. Frenchman Sir, you o'er-rate my poor kindness: I was glad I did atone my countryman and you; it had been pity you should have been put together with so mortal a purpose as then each bore, upon importance of so slight and trivial a nature. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS By your pardon, sir, I was then a young traveller; rather shunned to go even with what I heard than in my every action to be guided by others' experiences: but upon my mended judgment--if I offend not to say it is mended--my quarrel was not altogether slight. Frenchman 'Faith, yes, to be put to the arbitrement of swords, and by such two that would by all likelihood have confounded one the other, or have fallen both. IACHIMO Can we, with manners, ask what was the difference? Frenchman Safely, I think: 'twas a contention in public, which may, without contradiction, suffer the report. It was much like an argument that fell out last night, where each of us fell in praise of our country mistresses; this gentleman at that time vouching--and upon warrant of bloody affirmation--his to be more fair, virtuous, wise, chaste, constant-qualified and less attemptable than any the rarest of our ladies in France. IACHIMO That lady is not now living, or this gentleman's opinion by this worn out. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS She holds her virtue still and I my mind. IACHIMO You must not so far prefer her 'fore ours of Italy. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS Being so far provoked as I was in France, I would abate her nothing, though I profess myself her adorer, not her friend. IACHIMO As fair and as good--a kind of hand-in-hand comparison--had been something too fair and too good for any lady in Britain. If she went before others I have seen, as that diamond of yours outlustres many I have beheld. I could not but believe she excelled many: but I have not seen the most precious diamond that is, nor you the lady. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS I praised her as I rated her: so do I my stone. IACHIMO What do you esteem it at? POSTHUMUS LEONATUS More than the world enjoys. IACHIMO Either your unparagoned mistress is dead, or she's outprized by a trifle. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS You are mistaken: the one may be sold, or given, if there were wealth enough for the purchase, or merit for the gift: the other is not a thing for sale, and only the gift of the gods. IACHIMO Which the gods have given you? POSTHUMUS LEONATUS Which, by their graces, I will keep. IACHIMO You may wear her in title yours: but, you know, strange fowl light upon neighbouring ponds. Your ring may be stolen too: so your brace of unprizable estimations; the one is but frail and the other casual; a cunning thief, or a that way accomplished courtier, would hazard the winning both of first and last. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS Your Italy contains none so accomplished a courtier to convince the honour of my mistress, if, in the holding or loss of that, you term her frail. I do nothing doubt you have store of thieves; notwithstanding, I fear not my ring. PHILARIO Let us leave here, gentlemen. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS Sir, with all my heart. This worthy signior, I thank him, makes no stranger of me; we are familiar at first. IACHIMO With five times so much conversation, I should get ground of your fair mistress, make her go back, even to the yielding, had I admittance and opportunity to friend. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS No, no. IACHIMO I dare thereupon pawn the moiety of my estate to your ring; which, in my opinion, o'ervalues it something: but I make my wager rather against your confidence than her reputation: and, to bar your offence herein too, I durst attempt it against any lady in the world. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS You are a great deal abused in too bold a persuasion; and I doubt not you sustain what you're worthy of by your attempt. IACHIMO What's that? POSTHUMUS LEONATUS A repulse: though your attempt, as you call it, deserve more; a punishment too. PHILARIO Gentlemen, enough of this: it came in too suddenly; let it die as it was born, and, I pray you, be better acquainted. IACHIMO Would I had put my estate and my neighbour's on the approbation of what I have spoke! POSTHUMUS LEONATUS What lady would you choose to assail? IACHIMO Yours; whom in constancy you think stands so safe. I will lay you ten thousand ducats to your ring, that, commend me to the court where your lady is, with no more advantage than the opportunity of a second conference, and I will bring from thence that honour of hers which you imagine so reserved. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS I will wage against your gold, gold to it: my ring I hold dear as my finger; 'tis part of it. IACHIMO You are afraid, and therein the wiser. If you buy ladies' flesh at a million a dram, you cannot preserve it from tainting: but I see you have some religion in you, that you fear. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS This is but a custom in your tongue; you bear a graver purpose, I hope. IACHIMO I am the master of my speeches, and would undergo what's spoken, I swear. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS Will you? I shall but lend my diamond till your return: let there be covenants drawn between's: my mistress exceeds in goodness the hugeness of your unworthy thinking: I dare you to this match: here's my ring. PHILARIO I will have it no lay. IACHIMO By the gods, it is one. If I bring you no sufficient testimony that I have enjoyed the dearest bodily part of your mistress, my ten thousand ducats are yours; so is your diamond too: if I come off, and leave her in such honour as you have trust in, she your jewel, this your jewel, and my gold are yours: provided I have your commendation for my more free entertainment. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS I embrace these conditions; let us have articles betwixt us. Only, thus far you shall answer: if you make your voyage upon her and give me directly to understand you have prevailed, I am no further your enemy; she is not worth our debate: if she remain unseduced, you not making it appear otherwise, for your ill opinion and the assault you have made to her chastity you shall answer me with your sword. IACHIMO Your hand; a covenant: we will have these things set down by lawful counsel, and straight away for Britain, lest the bargain should catch cold and starve: I will fetch my gold and have our two wagers recorded. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS Agreed. [Exeunt POSTHUMUS LEONATUS and IACHIMO] Frenchman Will this hold, think you? PHILARIO Signior Iachimo will not from it. Pray, let us follow 'em. [Exeunt] CYMBELINE ACT I SCENE V Britain. A room in Cymbeline's palace. [Enter QUEEN, Ladies, and CORNELIUS] QUEEN Whiles yet the dew's on ground, gather those flowers; Make haste: who has the note of them? First Lady I, madam. QUEEN Dispatch. [Exeunt Ladies] Now, master doctor, have you brought those drugs? CORNELIUS Pleaseth your highness, ay: here they are, madam: [Presenting a small box] But I beseech your grace, without offence,-- My conscience bids me ask--wherefore you have Commanded of me those most poisonous compounds, Which are the movers of a languishing death; But though slow, deadly? QUEEN I wonder, doctor, Thou ask'st me such a question. Have I not been Thy pupil long? Hast thou not learn'd me how To make perfumes? distil? preserve? yea, so That our great king himself doth woo me oft For my confections? Having thus far proceeded,-- Unless thou think'st me devilish--is't not meet That I did amplify my judgment in Other conclusions? I will try the forces Of these thy compounds on such creatures as We count not worth the hanging, but none human, To try the vigour of them and apply Allayments to their act, and by them gather Their several virtues and effects. CORNELIUS Your highness Shall from this practise but make hard your heart: Besides, the seeing these effects will be Both noisome and infectious. QUEEN O, content thee. [Enter PISANIO] [Aside] Here comes a flattering rascal; upon him Will I first work: he's for his master, An enemy to my son. How now, Pisanio! Doctor, your service for this time is ended; Take your own way. CORNELIUS [Aside] I do suspect you, madam; But you shall do no harm. QUEEN [To PISANIO] Hark thee, a word. CORNELIUS [Aside] I do not like her. She doth think she has Strange lingering poisons: I do know her spirit, And will not trust one of her malice with A drug of such damn'd nature. Those she has Will stupefy and dull the sense awhile; Which first, perchance, she'll prove on cats and dogs, Then afterward up higher: but there is No danger in what show of death it makes, More than the locking-up the spirits a time, To be more fresh, reviving. She is fool'd With a most false effect; and I the truer, So to be false with her. QUEEN No further service, doctor, Until I send for thee. CORNELIUS I humbly take my leave. [Exit] QUEEN Weeps she still, say'st thou? Dost thou think in time She will not quench and let instructions enter Where folly now possesses? Do thou work: When thou shalt bring me word she loves my son, I'll tell thee on the instant thou art then As great as is thy master, greater, for His fortunes all lie speechless and his name Is at last gasp: return he cannot, nor Continue where he is: to shift his being Is to exchange one misery with another, And every day that comes comes to decay A day's work in him. What shalt thou expect, To be depender on a thing that leans, Who cannot be new built, nor has no friends, So much as but to prop him? [The QUEEN drops the box: PISANIO takes it up] Thou takest up Thou know'st not what; but take it for thy labour: It is a thing I made, which hath the king Five times redeem'd from death: I do not know What is more cordial. Nay, I prethee, take it; It is an earnest of a further good That I mean to thee. Tell thy mistress how The case stands with her; do't as from thyself. Think what a chance thou changest on, but think Thou hast thy mistress still, to boot, my son, Who shall take notice of thee: I'll move the king To any shape of thy preferment such As thou'lt desire; and then myself, I chiefly, That set thee on to this desert, am bound To load thy merit richly. Call my women: Think on my words. [Exit PISANIO] A sly and constant knave, Not to be shaked; the agent for his master And the remembrancer of her to hold The hand-fast to her lord. I have given him that Which, if he take, shall quite unpeople her Of liegers for her sweet, and which she after, Except she bend her humour, shall be assured To taste of too. [Re-enter PISANIO and Ladies] So, so: well done, well done: The violets, cowslips, and the primroses, Bear to my closet. Fare thee well, Pisanio; Think on my words. [Exeunt QUEEN and Ladies] PISANIO And shall do: But when to my good lord I prove untrue, I'll choke myself: there's all I'll do for you. [Exit] CYMBELINE ACT I SCENE VI The same. Another room in the palace. [Enter IMOGEN] IMOGEN A father cruel, and a step-dame false; A foolish suitor to a wedded lady, That hath her husband banish'd;--O, that husband! My supreme crown of grief! and those repeated Vexations of it! Had I been thief-stol'n, As my two brothers, happy! but most miserable Is the desire that's glorious: blest be those, How mean soe'er, that have their honest wills, Which seasons comfort. Who may this be? Fie! [Enter PISANIO and IACHIMO] PISANIO Madam, a noble gentleman of Rome, Comes from my lord with letters. IACHIMO Change you, madam? The worthy Leonatus is in safety And greets your highness dearly. [Presents a letter] IMOGEN Thanks, good sir: You're kindly welcome. IACHIMO [Aside] All of her that is out of door most rich! If she be furnish'd with a mind so rare, She is alone the Arabian bird, and I Have lost the wager. Boldness be my friend! Arm me, audacity, from head to foot! Or, like the Parthian, I shall flying fight; Rather directly fly. IMOGEN [Reads] 'He is one of the noblest note, to whose kindnesses I am most infinitely tied. Reflect upon him accordingly, as you value your trust-- LEONATUS.' So far I read aloud: But even the very middle of my heart Is warm'd by the rest, and takes it thankfully. You are as welcome, worthy sir, as I Have words to bid you, and shall find it so In all that I can do. IACHIMO Thanks, fairest lady. What, are men mad? Hath nature given them eyes To see this vaulted arch, and the rich crop Of sea and land, which can distinguish 'twixt The fiery orbs above and the twinn'd stones Upon the number'd beach? and can we not Partition make with spectacles so precious 'Twixt fair and foul? IMOGEN What makes your admiration? IACHIMO It cannot be i' the eye, for apes and monkeys 'Twixt two such shes would chatter this way and Contemn with mows the other; nor i' the judgment, For idiots in this case of favour would Be wisely definite; nor i' the appetite; Sluttery to such neat excellence opposed Should make desire vomit emptiness, Not so allured to feed. IMOGEN What is the matter, trow? IACHIMO The cloyed will, That satiate yet unsatisfied desire, that tub Both fill'd and running, ravening first the lamb Longs after for the garbage. IMOGEN What, dear sir, Thus raps you? Are you well? IACHIMO Thanks, madam; well. [To PISANIO] Beseech you, sir, desire My man's abode where I did leave him: he Is strange and peevish. PISANIO I was going, sir, To give him welcome. [Exit] IMOGEN Continues well my lord? His health, beseech you? IACHIMO Well, madam. IMOGEN Is he disposed to mirth? I hope he is. IACHIMO Exceeding pleasant; none a stranger there So merry and so gamesome: he is call'd The Briton reveller. IMOGEN When he was here, He did incline to sadness, and oft-times Not knowing why. IACHIMO I never saw him sad. There is a Frenchman his companion, one An eminent monsieur, that, it seems, much loves A Gallian girl at home; he furnaces The thick sighs from him, whiles the jolly Briton-- Your lord, I mean--laughs from's free lungs, cries 'O, Can my sides hold, to think that man, who knows By history, report, or his own proof, What woman is, yea, what she cannot choose But must be, will his free hours languish for Assured bondage?' IMOGEN Will my lord say so? IACHIMO Ay, madam, with his eyes in flood with laughter: It is a recreation to be by And hear him mock the Frenchman. But, heavens know, Some men are much to blame. IMOGEN Not he, I hope. IACHIMO Not he: but yet heaven's bounty towards him might Be used more thankfully. In himself, 'tis much; In you, which I account his beyond all talents, Whilst I am bound to wonder, I am bound To pity too. IMOGEN What do you pity, sir? IACHIMO Two creatures heartily. IMOGEN Am I one, sir? You look on me: what wreck discern you in me Deserves your pity? IACHIMO Lamentable! What, To hide me from the radiant sun and solace I' the dungeon by a snuff? IMOGEN I pray you, sir, Deliver with more openness your answers To my demands. Why do you pity me? IACHIMO That others do-- I was about to say--enjoy your--But It is an office of the gods to venge it, Not mine to speak on 't. IMOGEN You do seem to know Something of me, or what concerns me: pray you,-- Since doubling things go ill often hurts more Than to be sure they do; for certainties Either are past remedies, or, timely knowing, The remedy then born--discover to me What both you spur and stop. IACHIMO Had I this cheek To bathe my lips upon; this hand, whose touch, Whose every touch, would force the feeler's soul To the oath of loyalty; this object, which Takes prisoner the wild motion of mine eye, Fixing it only here; should I, damn'd then, Slaver with lips as common as the stairs That mount the Capitol; join gripes with hands Made hard with hourly falsehood--falsehood, as With labour; then by-peeping in an eye Base and unlustrous as the smoky light That's fed with stinking tallow; it were fit That all the plagues of hell should at one time Encounter such revolt. IMOGEN My lord, I fear, Has forgot Britain. IACHIMO And himself. Not I, Inclined to this intelligence, pronounce The beggary of his change; but 'tis your graces That from pay mutest conscience to my tongue Charms this report out. IMOGEN Let me hear no more. IACHIMO O dearest soul! your cause doth strike my heart With pity, that doth make me sick. A lady So fair, and fasten'd to an empery, Would make the great'st king double,--to be partner'd With tomboys hired with that self-exhibition Which your own coffers yield! with diseased ventures That play with all infirmities for gold Which rottenness can lend nature! such boil'd stuff As well might poison poison! Be revenged; Or she that bore you was no queen, and you Recoil from your great stock. IMOGEN Revenged! How should I be revenged? If this be true,-- As I have such a heart that both mine ears Must not in haste abuse--if it be true, How should I be revenged? IACHIMO Should he make me Live, like Diana's priest, betwixt cold sheets, Whiles he is vaulting variable ramps, In your despite, upon your purse? Revenge it. I dedicate myself to your sweet pleasure, More noble than that runagate to your bed, And will continue fast to your affection, Still close as sure. IMOGEN What, ho, Pisanio! IACHIMO Let me my service tender on your lips. IMOGEN Away! I do condemn mine ears that have So long attended thee. If thou wert honourable, Thou wouldst have told this tale for virtue, not For such an end thou seek'st,--as base as strange. Thou wrong'st a gentleman, who is as far From thy report as thou from honour, and Solicit'st here a lady that disdains Thee and the devil alike. What ho, Pisanio! The king my father shall be made acquainted Of thy assault: if he shall think it fit, A saucy stranger in his court to mart As in a Romish stew and to expound His beastly mind to us, he hath a court He little cares for and a daughter who He not respects at all. What, ho, Pisanio! IACHIMO O happy Leonatus! I may say The credit that thy lady hath of thee Deserves thy trust, and thy most perfect goodness Her assured credit. Blessed live you long! A lady to the worthiest sir that ever Country call'd his! and you his mistress, only For the most worthiest fit! Give me your pardon. I have spoke this, to know if your affiance Were deeply rooted; and shall make your lord, That which he is, new o'er: and he is one The truest manner'd; such a holy witch That he enchants societies into him; Half all men's hearts are his. IMOGEN You make amends. IACHIMO He sits 'mongst men like a descended god: He hath a kind of honour sets him off, More than a mortal seeming. Be not angry, Most mighty princess, that I have adventured To try your taking a false report; which hath Honour'd with confirmation your great judgment In the election of a sir so rare, Which you know cannot err: the love I bear him Made me to fan you thus, but the gods made you, Unlike all others, chaffless. Pray, your pardon. IMOGEN All's well, sir: take my power i' the court for yours. IACHIMO My humble thanks. I had almost forgot To entreat your grace but in a small request, And yet of moment to, for it concerns Your lord; myself and other noble friends, Are partners in the business. IMOGEN Pray, what is't? IACHIMO Some dozen Romans of us and your lord-- The best feather of our wing--have mingled sums To buy a present for the emperor Which I, the factor for the rest, have done In France: 'tis plate of rare device, and jewels Of rich and exquisite form; their values great; And I am something curious, being strange, To have them in safe stowage: may it please you To take them in protection? IMOGEN Willingly; And pawn mine honour for their safety: since My lord hath interest in them, I will keep them In my bedchamber. IACHIMO They are in a trunk, Attended by my men: I will make bold To send them to you, only for this night; I must aboard to-morrow. IMOGEN O, no, no. IACHIMO Yes, I beseech; or I shall short my word By lengthening my return. From Gallia I cross'd the seas on purpose and on promise To see your grace. IMOGEN I thank you for your pains: But not away to-morrow! IACHIMO O, I must, madam: Therefore I shall beseech you, if you please To greet your lord with writing, do't to-night: I have outstood my time; which is material To the tender of our present. IMOGEN I will write. Send your trunk to me; it shall safe be kept, And truly yielded you. You're very welcome. [Exeunt] CYMBELINE ACT II SCENE I Britain. Before Cymbeline's palace. [Enter CLOTEN and two Lords] CLOTEN Was there ever man had such luck! when I kissed the jack, upon an up-cast to be hit away! I had a hundred pound on't: and then a whoreson jackanapes must take me up for swearing; as if I borrowed mine oaths of him and might not spend them at my pleasure. First Lord What got he by that? You have broke his pate with your bowl. Second Lord [Aside] If his wit had been like him that broke it, it would have run all out. CLOTEN When a gentleman is disposed to swear, it is not for any standers-by to curtail his oaths, ha? Second Lord No my lord; [Aside] nor crop the ears of them. CLOTEN Whoreson dog! I give him satisfaction? Would he had been one of my rank! Second Lord [Aside] To have smelt like a fool. CLOTEN I am not vexed more at any thing in the earth: a pox on't! I had rather not be so noble as I am; they dare not fight with me, because of the queen my mother: every Jack-slave hath his bellyful of fighting, and I must go up and down like a cock that nobody can match. Second Lord [Aside] You are cock and capon too; and you crow, cock, with your comb on. CLOTEN Sayest thou? Second Lord It is not fit your lordship should undertake every companion that you give offence to. CLOTEN No, I know that: but it is fit I should commit offence to my inferiors. Second Lord Ay, it is fit for your lordship only. CLOTEN Why, so I say. First Lord Did you hear of a stranger that's come to court to-night? CLOTEN A stranger, and I not know on't! Second Lord [Aside] He's a strange fellow himself, and knows it not. First Lord There's an Italian come; and, 'tis thought, one of Leonatus' friends. CLOTEN Leonatus! a banished rascal; and he's another, whatsoever he be. Who told you of this stranger? First Lord One of your lordship's pages. CLOTEN Is it fit I went to look upon him? is there no derogation in't? Second Lord You cannot derogate, my lord. CLOTEN Not easily, I think. Second Lord [Aside] You are a fool granted; therefore your issues, being foolish, do not derogate. CLOTEN Come, I'll go see this Italian: what I have lost to-day at bowls I'll win to-night of him. Come, go. Second Lord I'll attend your lordship. [Exeunt CLOTEN and First Lord] That such a crafty devil as is his mother Should yield the world this ass! a woman that Bears all down with her brain; and this her son Cannot take two from twenty, for his heart, And leave eighteen. Alas, poor princess, Thou divine Imogen, what thou endurest, Betwixt a father by thy step-dame govern'd, A mother hourly coining plots, a wooer More hateful than the foul expulsion is Of thy dear husband, than that horrid act Of the divorce he'ld make! The heavens hold firm The walls of thy dear honour, keep unshaked That temple, thy fair mind, that thou mayst stand, To enjoy thy banish'd lord and this great land! [Exit] CYMBELINE ACT II SCENE II Imogen's bedchamber in Cymbeline's palace: a trunk in one corner of it. [IMOGEN in bed, reading; a Lady attending] IMOGEN Who's there? my woman Helen? Lady Please you, madam IMOGEN What hour is it? Lady Almost midnight, madam. IMOGEN I have read three hours then: mine eyes are weak: Fold down the leaf where I have left: to bed: Take not away the taper, leave it burning; And if thou canst awake by four o' the clock, I prithee, call me. Sleep hath seized me wholly [Exit Lady] To your protection I commend me, gods. From fairies and the tempters of the night Guard me, beseech ye. [Sleeps. IACHIMO comes from the trunk] IACHIMO The crickets sing, and man's o'er-labour'd sense Repairs itself by rest. Our Tarquin thus Did softly press the rushes, ere he waken'd The chastity he wounded. Cytherea, How bravely thou becomest thy bed, fresh lily, And whiter than the sheets! That I might touch! But kiss; one kiss! Rubies unparagon'd, How dearly they do't! 'Tis her breathing that Perfumes the chamber thus: the flame o' the taper Bows toward her, and would under-peep her lids, To see the enclosed lights, now canopied Under these windows, white and azure laced With blue of heaven's own tinct. But my design, To note the chamber: I will write all down: Such and such pictures; there the window; such The adornment of her bed; the arras; figures, Why, such and such; and the contents o' the story. Ah, but some natural notes about her body, Above ten thousand meaner moveables Would testify, to enrich mine inventory. O sleep, thou ape of death, lie dull upon her! And be her sense but as a monument, Thus in a chapel lying! Come off, come off: [Taking off her bracelet] As slippery as the Gordian knot was hard! 'Tis mine; and this will witness outwardly, As strongly as the conscience does within, To the madding of her lord. On her left breast A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops I' the bottom of a cowslip: here's a voucher, Stronger than ever law could make: this secret Will force him think I have pick'd the lock and ta'en The treasure of her honour. No more. To what end? Why should I write this down, that's riveted, Screw'd to my memory? She hath been reading late The tale of Tereus; here the leaf's turn'd down Where Philomel gave up. I have enough: To the trunk again, and shut the spring of it. Swift, swift, you dragons of the night, that dawning May bare the raven's eye! I lodge in fear; Though this a heavenly angel, hell is here. [Clock strikes] One, two, three: time, time! [Goes into the trunk. The scene closes] CYMBELINE ACT II SCENE III An ante-chamber adjoining Imogen's apartments. [Enter CLOTEN and Lords] First Lord Your lordship is the most patient man in loss, the most coldest that ever turned up ace. CLOTEN It would make any man cold to lose. First Lord But not every man patient after the noble temper of your lordship. You are most hot and furious when you win. CLOTEN Winning will put any man into courage. If I could get this foolish Imogen, I should have gold enough. It's almost morning, is't not? First Lord Day, my lord. CLOTEN I would this music would come: I am advised to give her music o' mornings; they say it will penetrate. [Enter Musicians] Come on; tune: if you can penetrate her with your fingering, so; we'll try with tongue too: if none will do, let her remain; but I'll never give o'er. First, a very excellent good-conceited thing; after, a wonderful sweet air, with admirable rich words to it: and then let her consider. [SONG] Hark, hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings, And Phoebus 'gins arise, His steeds to water at those springs On chaliced flowers that lies; And winking Mary-buds begin To ope their golden eyes: With every thing that pretty is, My lady sweet, arise: Arise, arise. CLOTEN So, get you gone. If this penetrate, I will consider your music the better: if it do not, it is a vice in her ears, which horse-hairs and calves'-guts, nor the voice of unpaved eunuch to boot, can never amend. [Exeunt Musicians] Second Lord Here comes the king. CLOTEN I am glad I was up so late; for that's the reason I was up so early: he cannot choose but take this service I have done fatherly. [Enter CYMBELINE and QUEEN] Good morrow to your majesty and to my gracious mother. CYMBELINE Attend you here the door of our stern daughter? Will she not forth? CLOTEN I have assailed her with music, but she vouchsafes no notice. CYMBELINE The exile of her minion is too new; She hath not yet forgot him: some more time Must wear the print of his remembrance out, And then she's yours. QUEEN You are most bound to the king, Who lets go by no vantages that may Prefer you to his daughter. Frame yourself To orderly soliciting, and be friended With aptness of the season; make denials Increase your services; so seem as if You were inspired to do those duties which You tender to her; that you in all obey her, Save when command to your dismission tends, And therein you are senseless. CLOTEN Senseless! not so. [Enter a Messenger] Messenger So like you, sir, ambassadors from Rome; The one is Caius Lucius. CYMBELINE A worthy fellow, Albeit he comes on angry purpose now; But that's no fault of his: we must receive him According to the honour of his sender; And towards himself, his goodness forespent on us, We must extend our notice. Our dear son, When you have given good morning to your mistress, Attend the queen and us; we shall have need To employ you towards this Roman. Come, our queen. [Exeunt all but CLOTEN] CLOTEN If she be up, I'll speak with her; if not, Let her lie still and dream. [Knocks] By your leave, ho! I Know her women are about her: what If I do line one of their hands? 'Tis gold Which buys admittance; oft it doth; yea, and makes Diana's rangers false themselves, yield up Their deer to the stand o' the stealer; and 'tis gold Which makes the true man kill'd and saves the thief; Nay, sometime hangs both thief and true man: what Can it not do and undo? I will make One of her women lawyer to me, for I yet not understand the case myself. [Knocks] By your leave. [Enter a Lady] Lady Who's there that knocks? CLOTEN A gentleman. Lady No more? CLOTEN Yes, and a gentlewoman's son. Lady That's more Than some, whose tailors are as dear as yours, Can justly boast of. What's your lordship's pleasure? CLOTEN Your lady's person: is she ready? Lady Ay, To keep her chamber. CLOTEN There is gold for you; Sell me your good report. Lady How! my good name? or to report of you What I shall think is good?--The princess! [Enter IMOGEN] CLOTEN Good morrow, fairest: sister, your sweet hand. [Exit Lady] IMOGEN Good morrow, sir. You lay out too much pains For purchasing but trouble; the thanks I give Is telling you that I am poor of thanks And scarce can spare them. CLOTEN Still, I swear I love you. IMOGEN If you but said so, 'twere as deep with me: If you swear still, your recompense is still That I regard it not. CLOTEN This is no answer. IMOGEN But that you shall not say I yield being silent, I would not speak. I pray you, spare me: 'faith, I shall unfold equal discourtesy To your best kindness: one of your great knowing Should learn, being taught, forbearance. CLOTEN To leave you in your madness, 'twere my sin: I will not. IMOGEN Fools are not mad folks. CLOTEN Do you call me fool? IMOGEN As I am mad, I do: If you'll be patient, I'll no more be mad; That cures us both. I am much sorry, sir, You put me to forget a lady's manners, By being so verbal: and learn now, for all, That I, which know my heart, do here pronounce, By the very truth of it, I care not for you, And am so near the lack of charity-- To accuse myself--I hate you; which I had rather You felt than make't my boast. CLOTEN You sin against Obedience, which you owe your father. For The contract you pretend with that base wretch, One bred of alms and foster'd with cold dishes, With scraps o' the court, it is no contract, none: And though it be allow'd in meaner parties-- Yet who than he more mean?--to knit their souls, On whom there is no more dependency But brats and beggary, in self-figured knot; Yet you are curb'd from that enlargement by The consequence o' the crown, and must not soil The precious note of it with a base slave. A hilding for a livery, a squire's cloth, A pantler, not so eminent. IMOGEN Profane fellow Wert thou the son of Jupiter and no more But what thou art besides, thou wert too base To be his groom: thou wert dignified enough, Even to the point of envy, if 'twere made Comparative for your virtues, to be styled The under-hangman of his kingdom, and hated For being preferred so well. CLOTEN The south-fog rot him! IMOGEN He never can meet more mischance than come To be but named of thee. His meanest garment, That ever hath but clipp'd his body, is dearer In my respect than all the hairs above thee, Were they all made such men. How now, Pisanio! [Enter PISANIO] CLOTEN 'His garment!' Now the devil-- IMOGEN To Dorothy my woman hie thee presently-- CLOTEN 'His garment!' IMOGEN I am sprited with a fool. Frighted, and anger'd worse: go bid my woman Search for a jewel that too casually Hath left mine arm: it was thy master's: 'shrew me, If I would lose it for a revenue Of any king's in Europe. I do think I saw't this morning: confident I am Last night 'twas on mine arm; I kiss'd it: I hope it be not gone to tell my lord That I kiss aught but he. PISANIO 'Twill not be lost. IMOGEN I hope so: go and search. [Exit PISANIO] CLOTEN You have abused me: 'His meanest garment!' IMOGEN Ay, I said so, sir: If you will make't an action, call witness to't. CLOTEN I will inform your father. IMOGEN Your mother too: She's my good lady, and will conceive, I hope, But the worst of me. So, I leave you, sir, To the worst of discontent. [Exit] CLOTEN I'll be revenged: 'His meanest garment!' Well. [Exit] CYMBELINE ACT II SCENE IV Rome. Philario's house. [Enter POSTHUMUS and PHILARIO] POSTHUMUS LEONATUS Fear it not, sir: I would I were so sure To win the king as I am bold her honour Will remain hers. PHILARIO What means do you make to him? POSTHUMUS LEONATUS Not any, but abide the change of time, Quake in the present winter's state and wish That warmer days would come: in these sear'd hopes, I barely gratify your love; they failing, I must die much your debtor. PHILARIO Your very goodness and your company O'erpays all I can do. By this, your king Hath heard of great Augustus: Caius Lucius Will do's commission throughly: and I think He'll grant the tribute, send the arrearages, Or look upon our Romans, whose remembrance Is yet fresh in their grief. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS I do believe, Statist though I am none, nor like to be, That this will prove a war; and you shall hear The legions now in Gallia sooner landed In our not-fearing Britain than have tidings Of any penny tribute paid. Our countrymen Are men more order'd than when Julius Caesar Smiled at their lack of skill, but found their courage Worthy his frowning at: their discipline, Now mingled with their courages, will make known To their approvers they are people such That mend upon the world. [Enter IACHIMO] PHILARIO See! Iachimo! POSTHUMUS LEONATUS The swiftest harts have posted you by land; And winds of all the comers kiss'd your sails, To make your vessel nimble. PHILARIO Welcome, sir. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS I hope the briefness of your answer made The speediness of your return. IACHIMO Your lady Is one of the fairest that I have look'd upon. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS And therewithal the best; or let her beauty Look through a casement to allure false hearts And be false with them. IACHIMO Here are letters for you. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS Their tenor good, I trust. IACHIMO 'Tis very like. PHILARIO Was Caius Lucius in the Britain court When you were there? IACHIMO He was expected then, But not approach'd. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS All is well yet. Sparkles this stone as it was wont? or is't not Too dull for your good wearing? IACHIMO If I had lost it, I should have lost the worth of it in gold. I'll make a journey twice as far, to enjoy A second night of such sweet shortness which Was mine in Britain, for the ring is won. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS The stone's too hard to come by. IACHIMO Not a whit, Your lady being so easy. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS Make not, sir, Your loss your sport: I hope you know that we Must not continue friends. IACHIMO Good sir, we must, If you keep covenant. Had I not brought The knowledge of your mistress home, I grant We were to question further: but I now Profess myself the winner of her honour, Together with your ring; and not the wronger Of her or you, having proceeded but By both your wills. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS If you can make't apparent That you have tasted her in bed, my hand And ring is yours; if not, the foul opinion You had of her pure honour gains or loses Your sword or mine, or masterless leaves both To who shall find them. IACHIMO Sir, my circumstances, Being so near the truth as I will make them, Must first induce you to believe: whose strength I will confirm with oath; which, I doubt not, You'll give me leave to spare, when you shall find You need it not. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS Proceed. IACHIMO First, her bedchamber,-- Where, I confess, I slept not, but profess Had that was well worth watching--it was hang'd With tapesty of silk and silver; the story Proud Cleopatra, when she met her Roman, And Cydnus swell'd above the banks, or for The press of boats or pride: a piece of work So bravely done, so rich, that it did strive In workmanship and value; which I wonder'd Could be so rarely and exactly wrought, Since the true life on't was-- POSTHUMUS LEONATUS This is true; And this you might have heard of here, by me, Or by some other. IACHIMO More particulars Must justify my knowledge. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS So they must, Or do your honour injury. IACHIMO The chimney Is south the chamber, and the chimney-piece Chaste Dian bathing: never saw I figures So likely to report themselves: the cutter Was as another nature, dumb; outwent her, Motion and breath left out. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS This is a thing Which you might from relation likewise reap, Being, as it is, much spoke of. IACHIMO The roof o' the chamber With golden cherubins is fretted: her andirons-- I had forgot them--were two winking Cupids Of silver, each on one foot standing, nicely Depending on their brands. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS This is her honour! Let it be granted you have seen all this--and praise Be given to your remembrance--the description Of what is in her chamber nothing saves The wager you have laid. IACHIMO Then, if you can, [Showing the bracelet] Be pale: I beg but leave to air this jewel; see! And now 'tis up again: it must be married To that your diamond; I'll keep them. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS Jove! Once more let me behold it: is it that Which I left with her? IACHIMO Sir--I thank her--that: She stripp'd it from her arm; I see her yet; Her pretty action did outsell her gift, And yet enrich'd it too: she gave it me, and said She prized it once. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS May be she pluck'd it off To send it me. IACHIMO She writes so to you, doth she? POSTHUMUS LEONATUS O, no, no, no! 'tis true. Here, take this too; [Gives the ring] It is a basilisk unto mine eye, Kills me to look on't. Let there be no honour Where there is beauty; truth, where semblance; love, Where there's another man: the vows of women Of no more bondage be, to where they are made, Than they are to their virtues; which is nothing. O, above measure false! PHILARIO Have patience, sir, And take your ring again; 'tis not yet won: It may be probable she lost it; or Who knows if one of her women, being corrupted, Hath stol'n it from her? POSTHUMUS LEONATUS Very true; And so, I hope, he came by't. Back my ring: Render to me some corporal sign about her, More evident than this; for this was stolen. IACHIMO By Jupiter, I had it from her arm. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS Hark you, he swears; by Jupiter he swears. 'Tis true:--nay, keep the ring--'tis true: I am sure She would not lose it: her attendants are All sworn and honourable:--they induced to steal it! And by a stranger!--No, he hath enjoyed her: The cognizance of her incontinency Is this: she hath bought the name of whore thus dearly. There, take thy hire; and all the fiends of hell Divide themselves between you! PHILARIO Sir, be patient: This is not strong enough to be believed Of one persuaded well of-- POSTHUMUS LEONATUS Never talk on't; She hath been colted by him. IACHIMO If you seek For further satisfying, under her breast-- Worthy the pressing--lies a mole, right proud Of that most delicate lodging: by my life, I kiss'd it; and it gave me present hunger To feed again, though full. You do remember This stain upon her? POSTHUMUS LEONATUS Ay, and it doth confirm Another stain, as big as hell can hold, Were there no more but it. IACHIMO Will you hear more? POSTHUMUS LEONATUS Spare your arithmetic: never count the turns; Once, and a million! IACHIMO I'll be sworn-- POSTHUMUS LEONATUS No swearing. If you will swear you have not done't, you lie; And I will kill thee, if thou dost deny Thou'st made me cuckold. IACHIMO I'll deny nothing. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS O, that I had her here, to tear her limb-meal! I will go there and do't, i' the court, before Her father. I'll do something-- [Exit] PHILARIO Quite besides The government of patience! You have won: Let's follow him, and pervert the present wrath He hath against himself. IACHIMO With an my heart. [Exeunt] CYMBELINE ACT II SCENE V Another room in Philario's house. [Enter POSTHUMUS LEONATUS] POSTHUMUS LEONATUS Is there no way for men to be but women Must be half-workers? We are all bastards; And that most venerable man which I Did call my father, was I know not where When I was stamp'd; some coiner with his tools Made me a counterfeit: yet my mother seem'd The Dian of that time so doth my wife The nonpareil of this. O, vengeance, vengeance! Me of my lawful pleasure she restrain'd And pray'd me oft forbearance; did it with A pudency so rosy the sweet view on't Might well have warm'd old Saturn; that I thought her As chaste as unsunn'd snow. O, all the devils! This yellow Iachimo, in an hour,--wast not?-- Or less,--at first?--perchance he spoke not, but, Like a full-acorn'd boar, a German one, Cried 'O!' and mounted; found no opposition But what he look'd for should oppose and she Should from encounter guard. Could I find out The woman's part in me! For there's no motion That tends to vice in man, but I affirm It is the woman's part: be it lying, note it, The woman's; flattering, hers; deceiving, hers; Lust and rank thoughts, hers, hers; revenges, hers; Ambitions, covetings, change of prides, disdain, Nice longing, slanders, mutability, All faults that may be named, nay, that hell knows, Why, hers, in part or all; but rather, all; For even to vice They are not constant but are changing still One vice, but of a minute old, for one Not half so old as that. I'll write against them, Detest them, curse them: yet 'tis greater skill In a true hate, to pray they have their will: The very devils cannot plague them better. [Exit] CYMBELINE ACT III SCENE I Britain. A hall in Cymbeline's palace. [Enter in state, CYMBELINE, QUEEN, CLOTEN, and Lords at one door, and at another, CAIUS LUCIUS and Attendants] CYMBELINE Now say, what would Augustus Caesar with us? CAIUS LUCIUS When Julius Caesar, whose remembrance yet Lives in men's eyes and will to ears and tongues Be theme and hearing ever, was in this Britain And conquer'd it, Cassibelan, thine uncle,-- Famous in Caesar's praises, no whit less Than in his feats deserving it--for him And his succession granted Rome a tribute, Yearly three thousand pounds, which by thee lately Is left untender'd. QUEEN And, to kill the marvel, Shall be so ever. CLOTEN There be many Caesars, Ere such another Julius. Britain is A world by itself; and we will nothing pay For wearing our own noses. QUEEN That opportunity Which then they had to take from 's, to resume We have again. Remember, sir, my liege, The kings your ancestors, together with The natural bravery of your isle, which stands As Neptune's park, ribbed and paled in With rocks unscalable and roaring waters, With sands that will not bear your enemies' boats, But suck them up to the topmast. A kind of conquest Caesar made here; but made not here his brag Of 'Came' and 'saw' and 'overcame: ' with shame-- That first that ever touch'd him--he was carried From off our coast, twice beaten; and his shipping-- Poor ignorant baubles!-- upon our terrible seas, Like egg-shells moved upon their surges, crack'd As easily 'gainst our rocks: for joy whereof The famed Cassibelan, who was once at point-- O giglot fortune!--to master Caesar's sword, Made Lud's town with rejoicing fires bright And Britons strut with courage. CLOTEN Come, there's no more tribute to be paid: our kingdom is stronger than it was at that time; and, as I said, there is no moe such Caesars: other of them may have crook'd noses, but to owe such straight arms, none. CYMBELINE Son, let your mother end. CLOTEN We have yet many among us can gripe as hard as Cassibelan: I do not say I am one; but I have a hand. Why tribute? why should we pay tribute? If Caesar can hide the sun from us with a blanket, or put the moon in his pocket, we will pay him tribute for light; else, sir, no more tribute, pray you now. CYMBELINE You must know, Till the injurious Romans did extort This tribute from us, we were free: Caesar's ambition, Which swell'd so much that it did almost stretch The sides o' the world, against all colour here Did put the yoke upon 's; which to shake off Becomes a warlike people, whom we reckon Ourselves to be. CLOTEN | | We do. Lords | CYMBELINE Say, then, to Caesar, Our ancestor was that Mulmutius which Ordain'd our laws, whose use the sword of Caesar Hath too much mangled; whose repair and franchise Shall, by the power we hold, be our good deed, Though Rome be therefore angry: Mulmutius made our laws, Who was the first of Britain which did put His brows within a golden crown and call'd Himself a king. CAIUS LUCIUS I am sorry, Cymbeline, That I am to pronounce Augustus Caesar-- Caesar, that hath more kings his servants than Thyself domestic officers--thine enemy: Receive it from me, then: war and confusion In Caesar's name pronounce I 'gainst thee: look For fury not to be resisted. Thus defied, I thank thee for myself. CYMBELINE Thou art welcome, Caius. Thy Caesar knighted me; my youth I spent Much under him; of him I gather'd honour; Which he to seek of me again, perforce, Behoves me keep at utterance. I am perfect That the Pannonians and Dalmatians for Their liberties are now in arms; a precedent Which not to read would show the Britons cold: So Caesar shall not find them. CAIUS LUCIUS Let proof speak. CLOTEN His majesty bids you welcome. Make pastime with us a day or two, or longer: if you seek us afterwards in other terms, you shall find us in our salt-water girdle: if you beat us out of it, it is yours; if you fall in the adventure, our crows shall fare the better for you; and there's an end. CAIUS LUCIUS So, sir. CYMBELINE I know your master's pleasure and he mine: All the remain is 'Welcome!' [Exeunt] CYMBELINE ACT III SCENE II Another room in the palace. [Enter PISANIO, with a letter] PISANIO How? of adultery? Wherefore write you not What monster's her accuser? Leonatus, O master! what a strange infection Is fall'n into thy ear! What false Italian, As poisonous-tongued as handed, hath prevail'd On thy too ready hearing? Disloyal! No: She's punish'd for her truth, and undergoes, More goddess-like than wife-like, such assaults As would take in some virtue. O my master! Thy mind to her is now as low as were Thy fortunes. How! that I should murder her? Upon the love and truth and vows which I Have made to thy command? I, her? her blood? If it be so to do good service, never Let me be counted serviceable. How look I, That I should seem to lack humanity so much as this fact comes to? [Reading] 'Do't: the letter that I have sent her, by her own command Shall give thee opportunity.' O damn'd paper! Black as the ink that's on thee! Senseless bauble, Art thou a feodary for this act, and look'st So virgin-like without? Lo, here she comes. I am ignorant in what I am commanded. [Enter IMOGEN] IMOGEN How now, Pisanio! PISANIO Madam, here is a letter from my lord. IMOGEN Who? thy lord? that is my lord, Leonatus! O, learn'd indeed were that astronomer That knew the stars as I his characters; He'ld lay the future open. You good gods, Let what is here contain'd relish of love, Of my lord's health, of his content, yet not That we two are asunder; let that grieve him: Some griefs are med'cinable; that is one of them, For it doth physic love: of his content, All but in that! Good wax, thy leave. Blest be You bees that make these locks of counsel! Lovers And men in dangerous bonds pray not alike: Though forfeiters you cast in prison, yet You clasp young Cupid's tables. Good news, gods! [Reads] 'Justice, and your father's wrath, should he take me in his dominion, could not be so cruel to me, as you, O the dearest of creatures, would even renew me with your eyes. Take notice that I am in Cambria, at Milford-Haven: what your own love will out of this advise you, follow. So he wishes you all happiness, that remains loyal to his vow, and your, increasing in love, LEONATUS POSTHUMUS.' O, for a horse with wings! Hear'st thou, Pisanio? He is at Milford-Haven: read, and tell me How far 'tis thither. If one of mean affairs May plod it in a week, why may not I Glide thither in a day? Then, true Pisanio,-- Who long'st, like me, to see thy lord; who long'st,-- let me bate,-but not like me--yet long'st, But in a fainter kind:--O, not like me; For mine's beyond beyond--say, and speak thick; Love's counsellor should fill the bores of hearing, To the smothering of the sense--how far it is To this same blessed Milford: and by the way Tell me how Wales was made so happy as To inherit such a haven: but first of all, How we may steal from hence, and for the gap That we shall make in time, from our hence-going And our return, to excuse: but first, how get hence: Why should excuse be born or e'er begot? We'll talk of that hereafter. Prithee, speak, How many score of miles may we well ride 'Twixt hour and hour? PISANIO One score 'twixt sun and sun, Madam, 's enough for you: [Aside] and too much too. IMOGEN Why, one that rode to's execution, man, Could never go so slow: I have heard of riding wagers, Where horses have been nimbler than the sands That run i' the clock's behalf. But this is foolery: Go bid my woman feign a sickness; say She'll home to her father: and provide me presently A riding-suit, no costlier than would fit A franklin's housewife. PISANIO Madam, you're best consider. IMOGEN I see before me, man: nor here, nor here, Nor what ensues, but have a fog in them, That I cannot look through. Away, I prithee; Do as I bid thee: there's no more to say, Accessible is none but Milford way. [Exeunt] CYMBELINE ACT III SCENE III Wales: a mountainous country with a cave. [Enter, from the cave, BELARIUS; GUIDERIUS, and ARVIRAGUS following] BELARIUS A goodly day not to keep house, with such Whose roof's as low as ours! Stoop, boys; this gate Instructs you how to adore the heavens and bows you To a morning's holy office: the gates of monarchs Are arch'd so high that giants may jet through And keep their impious turbans on, without Good morrow to the sun. Hail, thou fair heaven! We house i' the rock, yet use thee not so hardly As prouder livers do. GUIDERIUS Hail, heaven! ARVIRAGUS Hail, heaven! BELARIUS Now for our mountain sport: up to yond hill; Your legs are young; I'll tread these flats. Consider, When you above perceive me like a crow, That it is place which lessens and sets off; And you may then revolve what tales I have told you Of courts, of princes, of the tricks in war: This service is not service, so being done, But being so allow'd: to apprehend thus, Draws us a profit from all things we see; And often, to our comfort, shall we find The sharded beetle in a safer hold Than is the full-wing'd eagle. O, this life Is nobler than attending for a cheque, Richer than doing nothing for a bauble, Prouder than rustling in unpaid-for silk: Such gain the cap of him that makes 'em fine, Yet keeps his book uncross'd: no life to ours. GUIDERIUS Out of your proof you speak: we, poor unfledged, Have never wing'd from view o' the nest, nor know not What air's from home. Haply this life is best, If quiet life be best; sweeter to you That have a sharper known; well corresponding With your stiff age: but unto us it is A cell of ignorance; travelling a-bed; A prison for a debtor, that not dares To stride a limit. ARVIRAGUS What should we speak of When we are old as you? when we shall hear The rain and wind beat dark December, how, In this our pinching cave, shall we discourse The freezing hours away? We have seen nothing; We are beastly, subtle as the fox for prey, Like warlike as the wolf for what we eat; Our valour is to chase what flies; our cage We make a quire, as doth the prison'd bird, And sing our bondage freely. BELARIUS How you speak! Did you but know the city's usuries And felt them knowingly; the art o' the court As hard to leave as keep; whose top to climb Is certain falling, or so slippery that The fear's as bad as falling; the toil o' the war, A pain that only seems to seek out danger I' the name of fame and honour; which dies i' the search, And hath as oft a slanderous epitaph As record of fair act; nay, many times, Doth ill deserve by doing well; what's worse, Must court'sy at the censure:--O boys, this story The world may read in me: my body's mark'd With Roman swords, and my report was once First with the best of note: Cymbeline loved me, And when a soldier was the theme, my name Was not far off: then was I as a tree Whose boughs did bend with fruit: but in one night, A storm or robbery, call it what you will, Shook down my mellow hangings, nay, my leaves, And left me bare to weather. GUIDERIUS Uncertain favour! BELARIUS My fault being nothing--as I have told you oft-- But that two villains, whose false oaths prevail'd Before my perfect honour, swore to Cymbeline I was confederate with the Romans: so Follow'd my banishment, and this twenty years This rock and these demesnes have been my world; Where I have lived at honest freedom, paid More pious debts to heaven than in all The fore-end of my time. But up to the mountains! This is not hunters' language: he that strikes The venison first shall be the lord o' the feast; To him the other two shall minister; And we will fear no poison, which attends In place of greater state. I'll meet you in the valleys. [Exeunt GUIDERIUS and ARVIRAGUS] How hard it is to hide the sparks of nature! These boys know little they are sons to the king; Nor Cymbeline dreams that they are alive. They think they are mine; and though train'd up thus meanly I' the cave wherein they bow, their thoughts do hit The roofs of palaces, and nature prompts them In simple and low things to prince it much Beyond the trick of others. This Polydore, The heir of Cymbeline and Britain, who The king his father call'd Guiderius,--Jove! When on my three-foot stool I sit and tell The warlike feats I have done, his spirits fly out Into my story: say 'Thus, mine enemy fell, And thus I set my foot on 's neck;' even then The princely blood flows in his cheek, he sweats, Strains his young nerves and puts himself in posture That acts my words. The younger brother, Cadwal, Once Arviragus, in as like a figure, Strikes life into my speech and shows much more His own conceiving.--Hark, the game is roused! O Cymbeline! heaven and my conscience knows Thou didst unjustly banish me: whereon, At three and two years old, I stole these babes; Thinking to bar thee of succession, as Thou reft'st me of my lands. Euriphile, Thou wast their nurse; they took thee for their mother, And every day do honour to her grave: Myself, Belarius, that am Morgan call'd, They take for natural father. The game is up. [Exit] CYMBELINE ACT III SCENE IV Country near Milford-Haven. [Enter PISANIO and IMOGEN] IMOGEN Thou told'st me, when we came from horse, the place Was near at hand: ne'er long'd my mother so To see me first, as I have now. Pisanio! man! Where is Posthumus? What is in thy mind, That makes thee stare thus? Wherefore breaks that sigh From the inward of thee? One, but painted thus, Would be interpreted a thing perplex'd Beyond self-explication: put thyself Into a havior of less fear, ere wildness Vanquish my staider senses. What's the matter? Why tender'st thou that paper to me, with A look untender? If't be summer news, Smile to't before; if winterly, thou need'st But keep that countenance still. My husband's hand! That drug-damn'd Italy hath out-craftied him, And he's at some hard point. Speak, man: thy tongue May take off some extremity, which to read Would be even mortal to me. PISANIO Please you, read; And you shall find me, wretched man, a thing The most disdain'd of fortune. IMOGEN [Reads] 'Thy mistress, Pisanio, hath played the strumpet in my bed; the testimonies whereof lie bleeding in me. I speak not out of weak surmises, but from proof as strong as my grief and as certain as I expect my revenge. That part thou, Pisanio, must act for me, if thy faith be not tainted with the breach of hers. Let thine own hands take away her life: I shall give thee opportunity at Milford-Haven. She hath my letter for the purpose where, if thou fear to strike and to make me certain it is done, thou art the pandar to her dishonour and equally to me disloyal.' PISANIO What shall I need to draw my sword? the paper Hath cut her throat already. No, 'tis slander, Whose edge is sharper than the sword, whose tongue Outvenoms all the worms of Nile, whose breath Rides on the posting winds and doth belie All corners of the world: kings, queens and states, Maids, matrons, nay, the secrets of the grave This viperous slander enters. What cheer, madam? IMOGEN False to his bed! What is it to be false? To lie in watch there and to think on him? To weep 'twixt clock and clock? if sleep charge nature, To break it with a fearful dream of him And cry myself awake? that's false to's bed, is it? PISANIO Alas, good lady! IMOGEN I false! Thy conscience witness: Iachimo, Thou didst accuse him of incontinency; Thou then look'dst like a villain; now methinks Thy favour's good enough. Some jay of Italy Whose mother was her painting, hath betray'd him: Poor I am stale, a garment out of fashion; And, for I am richer than to hang by the walls, I must be ripp'd:--to pieces with me!--O, Men's vows are women's traitors! All good seeming, By thy revolt, O husband, shall be thought Put on for villany; not born where't grows, But worn a bait for ladies. PISANIO Good madam, hear me. IMOGEN True honest men being heard, like false Aeneas, Were in his time thought false, and Sinon's weeping Did scandal many a holy tear, took pity From most true wretchedness: so thou, Posthumus, Wilt lay the leaven on all proper men; Goodly and gallant shall be false and perjured From thy great fall. Come, fellow, be thou honest: Do thou thy master's bidding: when thou see'st him, A little witness my obedience: look! I draw the sword myself: take it, and hit The innocent mansion of my love, my heart; Fear not; 'tis empty of all things but grief; Thy master is not there, who was indeed The riches of it: do his bidding; strike Thou mayst be valiant in a better cause; But now thou seem'st a coward. PISANIO Hence, vile instrument! Thou shalt not damn my hand. IMOGEN Why, I must die; And if I do not by thy hand, thou art No servant of thy master's. Against self-slaughter There is a prohibition so divine That cravens my weak hand. Come, here's my heart. Something's afore't. Soft, soft! we'll no defence; Obedient as the scabbard. What is here? The scriptures of the loyal Leonatus, All turn'd to heresy? Away, away, Corrupters of my faith! you shall no more Be stomachers to my heart. Thus may poor fools Believe false teachers: though those that are betray'd Do feel the treason sharply, yet the traitor Stands in worse case of woe. And thou, Posthumus, thou that didst set up My disobedience 'gainst the king my father And make me put into contempt the suits Of princely fellows, shalt hereafter find It is no act of common passage, but A strain of rareness: and I grieve myself To think, when thou shalt be disedged by her That now thou tirest on, how thy memory Will then be pang'd by me. Prithee, dispatch: The lamb entreats the butcher: where's thy knife? Thou art too slow to do thy master's bidding, When I desire it too. PISANIO O gracious lady, Since I received command to do this business I have not slept one wink. IMOGEN Do't, and to bed then. PISANIO I'll wake mine eye-balls blind first. IMOGEN Wherefore then Didst undertake it? Why hast thou abused So many miles with a pretence? this place? Mine action and thine own? our horses' labour? The time inviting thee? the perturb'd court, For my being absent? whereunto I never Purpose return. Why hast thou gone so far, To be unbent when thou hast ta'en thy stand, The elected deer before thee? PISANIO But to win time To lose so bad employment; in the which I have consider'd of a course. Good lady, Hear me with patience. IMOGEN Talk thy tongue weary; speak I have heard I am a strumpet; and mine ear Therein false struck, can take no greater wound, Nor tent to bottom that. But speak. PISANIO Then, madam, I thought you would not back again. IMOGEN Most like; Bringing me here to kill me. PISANIO Not so, neither: But if I were as wise as honest, then My purpose would prove well. It cannot be But that my master is abused: Some villain, ay, and singular in his art. Hath done you both this cursed injury. IMOGEN Some Roman courtezan. PISANIO No, on my life. I'll give but notice you are dead and send him Some bloody sign of it; for 'tis commanded I should do so: you shall be miss'd at court, And that will well confirm it. IMOGEN Why good fellow, What shall I do the where? where bide? how live? Or in my life what comfort, when I am Dead to my husband? PISANIO If you'll back to the court-- IMOGEN No court, no father; nor no more ado With that harsh, noble, simple nothing, That Cloten, whose love-suit hath been to me As fearful as a siege. PISANIO If not at court, Then not in Britain must you bide. IMOGEN Where then Hath Britain all the sun that shines? Day, night, Are they not but in Britain? I' the world's volume Our Britain seems as of it, but not in 't; In a great pool a swan's nest: prithee, think There's livers out of Britain. PISANIO I am most glad You think of other place. The ambassador, Lucius the Roman, comes to Milford-Haven To-morrow: now, if you could wear a mind Dark as your fortune is, and but disguise That which, to appear itself, must not yet be But by self-danger, you should tread a course Pretty and full of view; yea, haply, near The residence of Posthumus; so nigh at least That though his actions were not visible, yet Report should render him hourly to your ear As truly as he moves. IMOGEN O, for such means! Though peril to my modesty, not death on't, I would adventure. PISANIO Well, then, here's the point: You must forget to be a woman; change Command into obedience: fear and niceness-- The handmaids of all women, or, more truly, Woman its pretty self--into a waggish courage: Ready in gibes, quick-answer'd, saucy and As quarrelous as the weasel; nay, you must Forget that rarest treasure of your cheek, Exposing it--but, O, the harder heart! Alack, no remedy!--to the greedy touch Of common-kissing Titan, and forget Your laboursome and dainty trims, wherein You made great Juno angry. IMOGEN Nay, be brief I see into thy end, and am almost A man already. PISANIO First, make yourself but like one. Fore-thinking this, I have already fit-- 'Tis in my cloak-bag--doublet, hat, hose, all That answer to them: would you in their serving, And with what imitation you can borrow From youth of such a season, 'fore noble Lucius Present yourself, desire his service, tell him wherein you're happy,--which you'll make him know, If that his head have ear in music,--doubtless With joy he will embrace you, for he's honourable And doubling that, most holy. Your means abroad, You have me, rich; and I will never fail Beginning nor supplyment. IMOGEN Thou art all the comfort The gods will diet me with. Prithee, away: There's more to be consider'd; but we'll even All that good time will give us: this attempt I am soldier to, and will abide it with A prince's courage. Away, I prithee. PISANIO Well, madam, we must take a short farewell, Lest, being miss'd, I be suspected of Your carriage from the court. My noble mistress, Here is a box; I had it from the queen: What's in't is precious; if you are sick at sea, Or stomach-qualm'd at land, a dram of this Will drive away distemper. To some shade, And fit you to your manhood. May the gods Direct you to the best! IMOGEN Amen: I thank thee. [Exeunt, severally] CYMBELINE ACT III SCENE V A room in Cymbeline's palace. [Enter CYMBELINE, QUEEN, CLOTEN, LUCIUS, Lords, and Attendants] CYMBELINE Thus far; and so farewell. CAIUS LUCIUS Thanks, royal sir. My emperor hath wrote, I must from hence; And am right sorry that I must report ye My master's enemy. CYMBELINE Our subjects, sir, Will not endure his yoke; and for ourself To show less sovereignty than they, must needs Appear unkinglike. CAIUS LUCIUS So, sir: I desire of you A conduct over-land to Milford-Haven. Madam, all joy befal your grace! QUEEN And you! CYMBELINE My lords, you are appointed for that office; The due of honour in no point omit. So farewell, noble Lucius. CAIUS LUCIUS Your hand, my lord. CLOTEN Receive it friendly; but from this time forth I wear it as your enemy. CAIUS LUCIUS Sir, the event Is yet to name the winner: fare you well. CYMBELINE Leave not the worthy Lucius, good my lords, Till he have cross'd the Severn. Happiness! [Exeunt LUCIUS and Lords] QUEEN He goes hence frowning: but it honours us That we have given him cause. CLOTEN 'Tis all the better; Your valiant Britons have their wishes in it. CYMBELINE Lucius hath wrote already to the emperor How it goes here. It fits us therefore ripely Our chariots and our horsemen be in readiness: The powers that he already hath in Gallia Will soon be drawn to head, from whence he moves His war for Britain. QUEEN 'Tis not sleepy business; But must be look'd to speedily and strongly. CYMBELINE Our expectation that it would be thus Hath made us forward. But, my gentle queen, Where is our daughter? She hath not appear'd Before the Roman, nor to us hath tender'd The duty of the day: she looks us like A thing more made of malice than of duty: We have noted it. Call her before us; for We have been too slight in sufferance. [Exit an Attendant] QUEEN Royal sir, Since the exile of Posthumus, most retired Hath her life been; the cure whereof, my lord, 'Tis time must do. Beseech your majesty, Forbear sharp speeches to her: she's a lady So tender of rebukes that words are strokes And strokes death to her. [Re-enter Attendant] CYMBELINE Where is she, sir? How Can her contempt be answer'd? Attendant Please you, sir, Her chambers are all lock'd; and there's no answer That will be given to the loudest noise we make. QUEEN My lord, when last I went to visit her, She pray'd me to excuse her keeping close, Whereto constrain'd by her infirmity, She should that duty leave unpaid to you, Which daily she was bound to proffer: this She wish'd me to make known; but our great court Made me to blame in memory. CYMBELINE Her doors lock'd? Not seen of late? Grant, heavens, that which I fear Prove false! [Exit] QUEEN Son, I say, follow the king. CLOTEN That man of hers, Pisanio, her old servant, have not seen these two days. QUEEN Go, look after. [Exit CLOTEN] Pisanio, thou that stand'st so for Posthumus! He hath a drug of mine; I pray his absence Proceed by swallowing that, for he believes It is a thing most precious. But for her, Where is she gone? Haply, despair hath seized her, Or, wing'd with fervor of her love, she's flown To her desired Posthumus: gone she is To death or to dishonour; and my end Can make good use of either: she being down, I have the placing of the British crown. [Re-enter CLOTEN] How now, my son! CLOTEN 'Tis certain she is fled. Go in and cheer the king: he rages; none Dare come about him. QUEEN [Aside] All the better: may This night forestall him of the coming day! [Exit] CLOTEN I love and hate her: for she's fair and royal, And that she hath all courtly parts more exquisite Than lady, ladies, woman; from every one The best she hath, and she, of all compounded, Outsells them all; I love her therefore: but Disdaining me and throwing favours on The low Posthumus slanders so her judgment That what's else rare is choked; and in that point I will conclude to hate her, nay, indeed, To be revenged upon her. For when fools Shall-- [Enter PISANIO] Who is here? What, are you packing, sirrah? Come hither: ah, you precious pander! Villain, Where is thy lady? In a word; or else Thou art straightway with the fiends. PISANIO O, good my lord! CLOTEN Where is thy lady? Or, by Jupiter,-- I will not ask again. Close villain, I'll have this secret from thy heart, or rip Thy heart to find it. Is she with Posthumus? From whose so many weights of baseness cannot A dram of worth be drawn. PISANIO Alas, my lord, How can she be with him? When was she missed? He is in Rome. CLOTEN Where is she, sir? Come nearer; No further halting: satisfy me home What is become of her. PISANIO O, my all-worthy lord! CLOTEN All-worthy villain! Discover where thy mistress is at once, At the next word: no more of 'worthy lord!' Speak, or thy silence on the instant is Thy condemnation and thy death. PISANIO Then, sir, This paper is the history of my knowledge Touching her flight. [Presenting a letter] CLOTEN Let's see't. I will pursue her Even to Augustus' throne. PISANIO [Aside] Or this, or perish. She's far enough; and what he learns by this May prove his travel, not her danger. CLOTEN Hum! PISANIO [Aside] I'll write to my lord she's dead. O Imogen, Safe mayst thou wander, safe return again! CLOTEN Sirrah, is this letter true? PISANIO Sir, as I think. CLOTEN It is Posthumus' hand; I know't. Sirrah, if thou wouldst not be a villain, but do me true service, undergo those employments wherein I should have cause to use thee with a serious industry, that is, what villany soe'er I bid thee do, to perform it directly and truly, I would think thee an honest man: thou shouldst neither want my means for thy relief nor my voice for thy preferment. PISANIO Well, my good lord. CLOTEN Wilt thou serve me? for since patiently and constantly thou hast stuck to the bare fortune of that beggar Posthumus, thou canst not, in the course of gratitude, but be a diligent follower of mine: wilt thou serve me? PISANIO Sir, I will. CLOTEN Give me thy hand; here's my purse. Hast any of thy late master's garments in thy possession? PISANIO I have, my lord, at my lodging, the same suit he wore when he took leave of my lady and mistress. CLOTEN The first service thou dost me, fetch that suit hither: let it be thy lint service; go. PISANIO I shall, my lord. [Exit] CLOTEN Meet thee at Milford-Haven!--I forgot to ask him one thing; I'll remember't anon:--even there, thou villain Posthumus, will I kill thee. I would these garments were come. She said upon a time--the bitterness of it I now belch from my heart--that she held the very garment of Posthumus in more respect than my noble and natural person together with the adornment of my qualities. With that suit upon my back, will I ravish her: first kill him, and in her eyes; there shall she see my valour, which will then be a torment to her contempt. He on the ground, my speech of insultment ended on his dead body, and when my lust hath dined,--which, as I say, to vex her I will execute in the clothes that she so praised,--to the court I'll knock her back, foot her home again. She hath despised me rejoicingly, and I'll be merry in my revenge. [Re-enter PISANIO, with the clothes] Be those the garments? PISANIO Ay, my noble lord. CLOTEN How long is't since she went to Milford-Haven? PISANIO She can scarce be there yet. CLOTEN Bring this apparel to my chamber; that is the second thing that I have commanded thee: the third is, that thou wilt be a voluntary mute to my design. Be but duteous, and true preferment shall tender itself to thee. My revenge is now at Milford: would I had wings to follow it! Come, and be true. [Exit] PISANIO Thou bid'st me to my loss: for true to thee Were to prove false, which I will never be, To him that is most true. To Milford go, And find not her whom thou pursuest. Flow, flow, You heavenly blessings, on her! This fool's speed Be cross'd with slowness; labour be his meed! [Exit] CYMBELINE ACT III SCENE VI Wales. Before the cave of Belarius. [Enter IMOGEN, in boy's clothes] IMOGEN I see a man's life is a tedious one: I have tired myself, and for two nights together Have made the ground my bed. I should be sick, But that my resolution helps me. Milford, When from the mountain-top Pisanio show'd thee, Thou wast within a ken: O Jove! I think Foundations fly the wretched; such, I mean, Where they should be relieved. Two beggars told me I could not miss my way: will poor folks lie, That have afflictions on them, knowing 'tis A punishment or trial? Yes; no wonder, When rich ones scarce tell true. To lapse in fulness Is sorer than to lie for need, and falsehood Is worse in kings than beggars. My dear lord! Thou art one o' the false ones. Now I think on thee, My hunger's gone; but even before, I was At point to sink for food. But what is this? Here is a path to't: 'tis some savage hold: I were best not to call; I dare not call: yet famine, Ere clean it o'erthrow nature, makes it valiant, Plenty and peace breeds cowards: hardness ever Of hardiness is mother. Ho! who's here? If any thing that's civil, speak; if savage, Take or lend. Ho! No answer? Then I'll enter. Best draw my sword: and if mine enemy But fear the sword like me, he'll scarcely look on't. Such a foe, good heavens! [Exit, to the cave] [Enter BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, and ARVIRAGUS] BELARIUS You, Polydote, have proved best woodman and Are master of the feast: Cadwal and I Will play the cook and servant; 'tis our match: The sweat of industry would dry and die, But for the end it works to. Come; our stomachs Will make what's homely savoury: weariness Can snore upon the flint, when resty sloth Finds the down pillow hard. Now peace be here, Poor house, that keep'st thyself! GUIDERIUS I am thoroughly weary. ARVIRAGUS I am weak with toil, yet strong in appetite. GUIDERIUS There is cold meat i' the cave; we'll browse on that, Whilst what we have kill'd be cook'd. BELARIUS [Looking into the cave] Stay; come not in. But that it eats our victuals, I should think Here were a fairy. GUIDERIUS What's the matter, sir? BELARIUS By Jupiter, an angel! or, if not, An earthly paragon! Behold divineness No elder than a boy! [Re-enter IMOGEN] IMOGEN Good masters, harm me not: Before I enter'd here, I call'd; and thought To have begg'd or bought what I have took: good troth, I have stol'n nought, nor would not, though I had found Gold strew'd i' the floor. Here's money for my meat: I would have left it on the board so soon As I had made my meal, and parted With prayers for the provider. GUIDERIUS Money, youth? ARVIRAGUS All gold and silver rather turn to dirt! As 'tis no better reckon'd, but of those Who worship dirty gods. IMOGEN I see you're angry: Know, if you kill me for my fault, I should Have died had I not made it. BELARIUS Whither bound? IMOGEN To Milford-Haven. BELARIUS What's your name? IMOGEN Fidele, sir. I have a kinsman who Is bound for Italy; he embark'd at Milford; To whom being going, almost spent with hunger, I am fall'n in this offence. BELARIUS Prithee, fair youth, Think us no churls, nor measure our good minds By this rude place we live in. Well encounter'd! 'Tis almost night: you shall have better cheer Ere you depart: and thanks to stay and eat it. Boys, bid him welcome. GUIDERIUS Were you a woman, youth, I should woo hard but be your groom. In honesty, I bid for you as I'd buy. ARVIRAGUS I'll make't my comfort He is a man; I'll love him as my brother: And such a welcome as I'd give to him After long absence, such is yours: most welcome! Be sprightly, for you fall 'mongst friends. IMOGEN 'Mongst friends, If brothers. [Aside] Would it had been so, that they Had been my father's sons! then had my prize Been less, and so more equal ballasting To thee, Posthumus. BELARIUS He wrings at some distress. GUIDERIUS Would I could free't! ARVIRAGUS Or I, whate'er it be, What pain it cost, what danger. God's! BELARIUS Hark, boys. [Whispering] IMOGEN Great men, That had a court no bigger than this cave, That did attend themselves and had the virtue Which their own conscience seal'd them--laying by That nothing-gift of differing multitudes-- Could not out-peer these twain. Pardon me, gods! I'd change my sex to be companion with them, Since Leonatus's false. BELARIUS It shall be so. Boys, we'll go dress our hunt. Fair youth, come in: Discourse is heavy, fasting; when we have supp'd, We'll mannerly demand thee of thy story, So far as thou wilt speak it. GUIDERIUS Pray, draw near. ARVIRAGUS The night to the owl and morn to the lark less welcome. IMOGEN Thanks, sir. ARVIRAGUS I pray, draw near. [Exeunt] CYMBELINE ACT III SCENE VII Rome. A public place. [Enter two Senators and Tribunes] First Senator This is the tenor of the emperor's writ: That since the common men are now in action 'Gainst the Pannonians and Dalmatians, And that the legions now in Gallia are Full weak to undertake our wars against The fall'n-off Britons, that we do incite The gentry to this business. He creates Lucius preconsul: and to you the tribunes, For this immediate levy, he commends His absolute commission. Long live Caesar! First Tribune Is Lucius general of the forces? Second Senator Ay. First Tribune Remaining now in Gallia? First Senator With those legions Which I have spoke of, whereunto your levy Must be supplyant: the words of your commission Will tie you to the numbers and the time Of their dispatch. First Tribune We will discharge our duty. [Exeunt] CYMBELINE ACT IV SCENE I Wales: near the cave of Belarius. [Enter CLOTEN] CLOTEN I am near to the place where they should meet, if Pisanio have mapped it truly. How fit his garments serve me! Why should his mistress, who was made by him that made the tailor, not be fit too? the rather--saving reverence of the word--for 'tis said a woman's fitness comes by fits. Therein I must play the workman. I dare speak it to myself--for it is not vain-glory for a man and his glass to confer in his own chamber--I mean, the lines of my body are as well drawn as his; no less young, more strong, not beneath him in fortunes, beyond him in the advantage of the time, above him in birth, alike conversant in general services, and more remarkable in single oppositions: yet this imperceiverant thing loves him in my despite. What mortality is! Posthumus, thy head, which now is growing upon thy shoulders, shall within this hour be off; thy mistress enforced; thy garments cut to pieces before thy face: and all this done, spurn her home to her father; who may haply be a little angry for my so rough usage; but my mother, having power of his testiness, shall turn all into my commendations. My horse is tied up safe: out, sword, and to a sore purpose! Fortune, put them into my hand! This is the very description of their meeting-place; and the fellow dares not deceive me. [Exit] CYMBELINE ACT IV SCENE II Before the cave of Belarius. [Enter, from the cave, BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, ARVIRAGUS, and IMOGEN] BELARIUS [To IMOGEN] You are not well: remain here in the cave; We'll come to you after hunting. ARVIRAGUS [To IMOGEN] Brother, stay here Are we not brothers? IMOGEN So man and man should be; But clay and clay differs in dignity, Whose dust is both alike. I am very sick. GUIDERIUS Go you to hunting; I'll abide with him. IMOGEN So sick I am not, yet I am not well; But not so citizen a wanton as To seem to die ere sick: so please you, leave me; Stick to your journal course: the breach of custom Is breach of all. I am ill, but your being by me Cannot amend me; society is no comfort To one not sociable: I am not very sick, Since I can reason of it. Pray you, trust me here: I'll rob none but myself; and let me die, Stealing so poorly. GUIDERIUS I love thee; I have spoke it How much the quantity, the weight as much, As I do love my father. BELARIUS What! how! how! ARVIRAGUS If it be sin to say so, I yoke me In my good brother's fault: I know not why I love this youth; and I have heard you say, Love's reason's without reason: the bier at door, And a demand who is't shall die, I'd say 'My father, not this youth.' BELARIUS [Aside] O noble strain! O worthiness of nature! breed of greatness! Cowards father cowards and base things sire base: Nature hath meal and bran, contempt and grace. I'm not their father; yet who this should be, Doth miracle itself, loved before me. 'Tis the ninth hour o' the morn. ARVIRAGUS Brother, farewell. IMOGEN I wish ye sport. ARVIRAGUS You health. So please you, sir. IMOGEN [Aside] These are kind creatures. Gods, what lies I have heard! Our courtiers say all's savage but at court: Experience, O, thou disprovest report! The imperious seas breed monsters, for the dish Poor tributary rivers as sweet fish. I am sick still; heart-sick. Pisanio, I'll now taste of thy drug. [Swallows some] GUIDERIUS I could not stir him: He said he was gentle, but unfortunate; Dishonestly afflicted, but yet honest. ARVIRAGUS Thus did he answer me: yet said, hereafter I might know more. BELARIUS To the field, to the field! We'll leave you for this time: go in and rest. ARVIRAGUS We'll not be long away. BELARIUS Pray, be not sick, For you must be our housewife. IMOGEN Well or ill, I am bound to you. BELARIUS And shalt be ever. [Exit IMOGEN, to the cave] This youth, how'er distress'd, appears he hath had Good ancestors. ARVIRAGUS How angel-like he sings! GUIDERIUS But his neat cookery! he cut our roots In characters, And sauced our broths, as Juno had been sick And he her dieter. ARVIRAGUS Nobly he yokes A smiling with a sigh, as if the sigh Was that it was, for not being such a smile; The smile mocking the sigh, that it would fly From so divine a temple, to commix With winds that sailors rail at. GUIDERIUS I do note That grief and patience, rooted in him both, Mingle their spurs together. ARVIRAGUS Grow, patience! And let the stinking elder, grief, untwine His perishing root with the increasing vine! BELARIUS It is great morning. Come, away!-- Who's there? [Enter CLOTEN] CLOTEN I cannot find those runagates; that villain Hath mock'd me. I am faint. BELARIUS 'Those runagates!' Means he not us? I partly know him: 'tis Cloten, the son o' the queen. I fear some ambush. I saw him not these many years, and yet I know 'tis he. We are held as outlaws: hence! GUIDERIUS He is but one: you and my brother search What companies are near: pray you, away; Let me alone with him. [Exeunt BELARIUS and ARVIRAGUS] CLOTEN Soft! What are you That fly me thus? some villain mountaineers? I have heard of such. What slave art thou? GUIDERIUS A thing More slavish did I ne'er than answering A slave without a knock. CLOTEN Thou art a robber, A law-breaker, a villain: yield thee, thief. GUIDERIUS To who? to thee? What art thou? Have not I An arm as big as thine? a heart as big? Thy words, I grant, are bigger, for I wear not My dagger in my mouth. Say what thou art, Why I should yield to thee? CLOTEN Thou villain base, Know'st me not by my clothes? GUIDERIUS No, nor thy tailor, rascal, Who is thy grandfather: he made those clothes, Which, as it seems, make thee. CLOTEN Thou precious varlet, My tailor made them not. GUIDERIUS Hence, then, and thank The man that gave them thee. Thou art some fool; I am loath to beat thee. CLOTEN Thou injurious thief, Hear but my name, and tremble. GUIDERIUS What's thy name? CLOTEN Cloten, thou villain. GUIDERIUS Cloten, thou double villain, be thy name, I cannot tremble at it: were it Toad, or Adder, Spider, 'Twould move me sooner. CLOTEN To thy further fear, Nay, to thy mere confusion, thou shalt know I am son to the queen. GUIDERIUS I am sorry for 't; not seeming So worthy as thy birth. CLOTEN Art not afeard? GUIDERIUS Those that I reverence those I fear, the wise: At fools I laugh, not fear them. CLOTEN Die the death: When I have slain thee with my proper hand, I'll follow those that even now fled hence, And on the gates of Lud's-town set your heads: Yield, rustic mountaineer. [Exeunt, fighting] [Re-enter BELARIUS and ARVIRAGUS] BELARIUS No companies abroad? ARVIRAGUS None in the world: you did mistake him, sure. BELARIUS I cannot tell: long is it since I saw him, But time hath nothing blurr'd those lines of favour Which then he wore; the snatches in his voice, And burst of speaking, were as his: I am absolute 'Twas very Cloten. ARVIRAGUS In this place we left them: I wish my brother make good time with him, You say he is so fell. BELARIUS Being scarce made up, I mean, to man, he had not apprehension Of roaring terrors; for the effect of judgment Is oft the cause of fear. But, see, thy brother. [Re-enter GUIDERIUS, with CLOTEN'S head] GUIDERIUS This Cloten was a fool, an empty purse; There was no money in't: not Hercules Could have knock'd out his brains, for he had none: Yet I not doing this, the fool had borne My head as I do his. BELARIUS What hast thou done? GUIDERIUS I am perfect what: cut off one Cloten's head, Son to the queen, after his own report; Who call'd me traitor, mountaineer, and swore With his own single hand he'ld take us in Displace our heads where--thank the gods!--they grow, And set them on Lud's-town. BELARIUS We are all undone. GUIDERIUS Why, worthy father, what have we to lose, But that he swore to take, our lives? The law Protects not us: then why should we be tender To let an arrogant piece of flesh threat us, Play judge and executioner all himself, For we do fear the law? What company Discover you abroad? BELARIUS No single soul Can we set eye on; but in all safe reason He must have some attendants. Though his humour Was nothing but mutation, ay, and that From one bad thing to worse; not frenzy, not Absolute madness could so far have raved To bring him here alone; although perhaps It may be heard at court that such as we Cave here, hunt here, are outlaws, and in time May make some stronger head; the which he hearing-- As it is like him--might break out, and swear He'ld fetch us in; yet is't not probable To come alone, either he so undertaking, Or they so suffering: then on good ground we fear, If we do fear this body hath a tail More perilous than the head. ARVIRAGUS Let ordinance Come as the gods foresay it: howsoe'er, My brother hath done well. BELARIUS I had no mind To hunt this day: the boy Fidele's sickness Did make my way long forth. GUIDERIUS With his own sword, Which he did wave against my throat, I have ta'en His head from him: I'll throw't into the creek Behind our rock; and let it to the sea, And tell the fishes he's the queen's son, Cloten: That's all I reck. [Exit] BELARIUS I fear 'twill be revenged: Would, Polydote, thou hadst not done't! though valour Becomes thee well enough. ARVIRAGUS Would I had done't So the revenge alone pursued me! Polydore, I love thee brotherly, but envy much Thou hast robb'd me of this deed: I would revenges, That possible strength might meet, would seek us through And put us to our answer. BELARIUS Well, 'tis done: We'll hunt no more to-day, nor seek for danger Where there's no profit. I prithee, to our rock; You and Fidele play the cooks: I'll stay Till hasty Polydote return, and bring him To dinner presently. ARVIRAGUS Poor sick Fidele! I'll weringly to him: to gain his colour I'ld let a parish of such Clotens' blood, And praise myself for charity. [Exit] BELARIUS O thou goddess, Thou divine Nature, how thyself thou blazon'st In these two princely boys! They are as gentle As zephyrs blowing below the violet, Not wagging his sweet head; and yet as rough, Their royal blood enchafed, as the rudest wind, That by the top doth take the mountain pine, And make him stoop to the vale. 'Tis wonder That an invisible instinct should frame them To royalty unlearn'd, honour untaught, Civility not seen from other, valour That wildly grows in them, but yields a crop As if it had been sow'd. Yet still it's strange What Cloten's being here to us portends, Or what his death will bring us. [Re-enter GUIDERIUS] GUIDERIUS Where's my brother? I have sent Cloten's clotpoll down the stream, In embassy to his mother: his body's hostage For his return. [Solemn music] BELARIUS My ingenious instrument! Hark, Polydore, it sounds! But what occasion Hath Cadwal now to give it motion? Hark! GUIDERIUS Is he at home? BELARIUS He went hence even now. GUIDERIUS What does he mean? since death of my dear'st mother it did not speak before. All solemn things Should answer solemn accidents. The matter? Triumphs for nothing and lamenting toys Is jollity for apes and grief for boys. Is Cadwal mad? BELARIUS Look, here he comes, And brings the dire occasion in his arms Of what we blame him for. [Re-enter ARVIRAGUS, with IMOGEN, as dead, bearing her in his arms] ARVIRAGUS The bird is dead That we have made so much on. I had rather Have skipp'd from sixteen years of age to sixty, To have turn'd my leaping-time into a crutch, Than have seen this. GUIDERIUS O sweetest, fairest lily! My brother wears thee not the one half so well As when thou grew'st thyself. BELARIUS O melancholy! Who ever yet could sound thy bottom? find The ooze, to show what coast thy sluggish crare Might easiliest harbour in? Thou blessed thing! Jove knows what man thou mightst have made; but I, Thou diedst, a most rare boy, of melancholy. How found you him? ARVIRAGUS Stark, as you see: Thus smiling, as some fly hid tickled slumber, Not as death's dart, being laugh'd at; his right cheek Reposing on a cushion. GUIDERIUS Where? ARVIRAGUS O' the floor; His arms thus leagued: I thought he slept, and put My clouted brogues from off my feet, whose rudeness Answer'd my steps too loud. GUIDERIUS Why, he but sleeps: If he be gone, he'll make his grave a bed; With female fairies will his tomb be haunted, And worms will not come to thee. ARVIRAGUS With fairest flowers Whilst summer lasts and I live here, Fidele, I'll sweeten thy sad grave: thou shalt not lack The flower that's like thy face, pale primrose, nor The azured harebell, like thy veins, no, nor The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander, Out-sweeten'd not thy breath: the ruddock would, With charitable bill,--O bill, sore-shaming Those rich-left heirs that let their fathers lie Without a monument!--bring thee all this; Yea, and furr'd moss besides, when flowers are none, To winter-ground thy corse. GUIDERIUS Prithee, have done; And do not play in wench-like words with that Which is so serious. Let us bury him, And not protract with admiration what Is now due debt. To the grave! ARVIRAGUS Say, where shall's lay him? GUIDERIUS By good Euriphile, our mother. ARVIRAGUS Be't so: And let us, Polydore, though now our voices Have got the mannish crack, sing him to the ground, As once our mother; use like note and words, Save that Euriphile must be Fidele. GUIDERIUS Cadwal, I cannot sing: I'll weep, and word it with thee; For notes of sorrow out of tune are worse Than priests and fanes that lie. ARVIRAGUS We'll speak it, then. BELARIUS Great griefs, I see, medicine the less; for Cloten Is quite forgot. He was a queen's son, boys; And though he came our enemy, remember He was paid for that: though mean and mighty, rotting Together, have one dust, yet reverence, That angel of the world, doth make distinction Of place 'tween high and low. Our foe was princely And though you took his life, as being our foe, Yet bury him as a prince. GUIDERIUS Pray You, fetch him hither. Thersites' body is as good as Ajax', When neither are alive. ARVIRAGUS If you'll go fetch him, We'll say our song the whilst. Brother, begin. [Exit BELARIUS] GUIDERIUS Nay, Cadwal, we must lay his head to the east; My father hath a reason for't. ARVIRAGUS 'Tis true. GUIDERIUS Come on then, and remove him. ARVIRAGUS So. Begin. [SONG] GUIDERIUS Fear no more the heat o' the sun, Nor the furious winter's rages; Thou thy worldly task hast done, Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages: Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney-sweepers, come to dust. ARVIRAGUS Fear no more the frown o' the great; Thou art past the tyrant's stroke; Care no more to clothe and eat; To thee the reed is as the oak: The sceptre, learning, physic, must All follow this, and come to dust. GUIDERIUS Fear no more the lightning flash, ARVIRAGUS Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone; GUIDERIUS Fear not slander, censure rash; ARVIRAGUS Thou hast finish'd joy and moan: GUIDERIUS | | All lovers young, all lovers must ARVIRAGUS | Consign to thee, and come to dust. GUIDERIUS No exorciser harm thee! ARVIRAGUS Nor no witchcraft charm thee! GUIDERIUS Ghost unlaid forbear thee! ARVIRAGUS Nothing ill come near thee! GUIDERIUS | | Quiet consummation have; ARVIRAGUS | And renowned be thy grave! [Re-enter BELARIUS, with the body of CLOTEN] GUIDERIUS We have done our obsequies: come, lay him down. BELARIUS Here's a few flowers; but 'bout midnight, more: The herbs that have on them cold dew o' the night Are strewings fitt'st for graves. Upon their faces. You were as flowers, now wither'd: even so These herblets shall, which we upon you strew. Come on, away: apart upon our knees. The ground that gave them first has them again: Their pleasures here are past, so is their pain. [Exeunt BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, and ARVIRAGUS] IMOGEN [Awaking] Yes, sir, to Milford-Haven; which is the way?-- I thank you.--By yond bush?--Pray, how far thither? 'Ods pittikins! can it be six mile yet?-- I have gone all night. 'Faith, I'll lie down and sleep. But, soft! no bedfellow!--O gods and goddesses! [Seeing the body of CLOTEN] These flowers are like the pleasures of the world; This bloody man, the care on't. I hope I dream; For so I thought I was a cave-keeper, And cook to honest creatures: but 'tis not so; 'Twas but a bolt of nothing, shot at nothing, Which the brain makes of fumes: our very eyes Are sometimes like our judgments, blind. Good faith, I tremble stiff with fear: but if there be Yet left in heaven as small a drop of pity As a wren's eye, fear'd gods, a part of it! The dream's here still: even when I wake, it is Without me, as within me; not imagined, felt. A headless man! The garments of Posthumus! I know the shape of's leg: this is his hand; His foot Mercurial; his Martial thigh; The brawns of Hercules: but his Jovial face Murder in heaven?--How!--'Tis gone. Pisanio, All curses madded Hecuba gave the Greeks, And mine to boot, be darted on thee! Thou, Conspired with that irregulous devil, Cloten, Hast here cut off my lord. To write and read Be henceforth treacherous! Damn'd Pisanio Hath with his forged letters,--damn'd Pisanio-- From this most bravest vessel of the world Struck the main-top! O Posthumus! alas, Where is thy head? where's that? Ay me! where's that? Pisanio might have kill'd thee at the heart, And left this head on. How should this be? Pisanio? 'Tis he and Cloten: malice and lucre in them Have laid this woe here. O, 'tis pregnant, pregnant! The drug he gave me, which he said was precious And cordial to me, have I not found it Murderous to the senses? That confirms it home: This is Pisanio's deed, and Cloten's: O! Give colour to my pale cheek with thy blood, That we the horrider may seem to those Which chance to find us: O, my lord, my lord! [Falls on the body] [Enter LUCIUS, a Captain and other Officers, and a Soothsayer] Captain To them the legions garrison'd in Gailia, After your will, have cross'd the sea, attending You here at Milford-Haven with your ships: They are in readiness. CAIUS LUCIUS But what from Rome? Captain The senate hath stirr'd up the confiners And gentlemen of Italy, most willing spirits, That promise noble service: and they come Under the conduct of bold Iachimo, Syenna's brother. CAIUS LUCIUS When expect you them? Captain With the next benefit o' the wind. CAIUS LUCIUS This forwardness Makes our hopes fair. Command our present numbers Be muster'd; bid the captains look to't. Now, sir, What have you dream'd of late of this war's purpose? Soothsayer Last night the very gods show'd me a vision-- I fast and pray'd for their intelligence--thus: I saw Jove's bird, the Roman eagle, wing'd From the spongy south to this part of the west, There vanish'd in the sunbeams: which portends-- Unless my sins abuse my divination-- Success to the Roman host. CAIUS LUCIUS Dream often so, And never false. Soft, ho! what trunk is here Without his top? The ruin speaks that sometime It was a worthy building. How! a page! Or dead, or sleeping on him? But dead rather; For nature doth abhor to make his bed With the defunct, or sleep upon the dead. Let's see the boy's face. Captain He's alive, my lord. CAIUS LUCIUS He'll then instruct us of this body. Young one, Inform us of thy fortunes, for it seems They crave to be demanded. Who is this Thou makest thy bloody pillow? Or who was he That, otherwise than noble nature did, Hath alter'd that good picture? What's thy interest In this sad wreck? How came it? Who is it? What art thou? IMOGEN I am nothing: or if not, Nothing to be were better. This was my master, A very valiant Briton and a good, That here by mountaineers lies slain. Alas! There is no more such masters: I may wander From east to occident, cry out for service, Try many, all good, serve truly, never Find such another master. CAIUS LUCIUS 'Lack, good youth! Thou movest no less with thy complaining than Thy master in bleeding: say his name, good friend. IMOGEN Richard du Champ. [Aside] If I do lie and do No harm by it, though the gods hear, I hope They'll pardon it.--Say you, sir? CAIUS LUCIUS Thy name? IMOGEN Fidele, sir. CAIUS LUCIUS Thou dost approve thyself the very same: Thy name well fits thy faith, thy faith thy name. Wilt take thy chance with me? I will not say Thou shalt be so well master'd, but, be sure, No less beloved. The Roman emperor's letters, Sent by a consul to me, should not sooner Than thine own worth prefer thee: go with me. IMOGEN I'll follow, sir. But first, an't please the gods, I'll hide my master from the flies, as deep As these poor pickaxes can dig; and when With wild wood-leaves and weeds I ha' strew'd his grave, And on it said a century of prayers, Such as I can, twice o'er, I'll weep and sigh; And leaving so his service, follow you, So please you entertain me. CAIUS LUCIUS Ay, good youth! And rather father thee than master thee. My friends, The boy hath taught us manly duties: let us Find out the prettiest daisied plot we can, And make him with our pikes and partisans A grave: come, arm him. Boy, he is preferr'd By thee to us, and he shall be interr'd As soldiers can. Be cheerful; wipe thine eyes Some falls are means the happier to arise. [Exeunt] CYMBELINE ACT IV SCENE III A room in Cymbeline's palace. [Enter CYMBELINE, Lords, PISANIO, and Attendants] CYMBELINE Again; and bring me word how 'tis with her. [Exit an Attendant] A fever with the absence of her son, A madness, of which her life's in danger. Heavens, How deeply you at once do touch me! Imogen, The great part of my comfort, gone; my queen Upon a desperate bed, and in a time When fearful wars point at me; her son gone, So needful for this present: it strikes me, past The hope of comfort. But for thee, fellow, Who needs must know of her departure and Dost seem so ignorant, we'll enforce it from thee By a sharp torture. PISANIO Sir, my life is yours; I humbly set it at your will; but, for my mistress, I nothing know where she remains, why gone, Nor when she purposes return. Beseech your highness, Hold me your loyal servant. First Lord Good my liege, The day that she was missing he was here: I dare be bound he's true and shall perform All parts of his subjection loyally. For Cloten, There wants no diligence in seeking him, And will, no doubt, be found. CYMBELINE The time is troublesome. [To PISANIO] We'll slip you for a season; but our jealousy Does yet depend. First Lord So please your majesty, The Roman legions, all from Gallia drawn, Are landed on your coast, with a supply Of Roman gentlemen, by the senate sent. CYMBELINE Now for the counsel of my son and queen! I am amazed with matter. First Lord Good my liege, Your preparation can affront no less Than what you hear of: come more, for more you're ready: The want is but to put those powers in motion That long to move. CYMBELINE I thank you. Let's withdraw; And meet the time as it seeks us. We fear not What can from Italy annoy us; but We grieve at chances here. Away! [Exeunt all but PISANIO] PISANIO I heard no letter from my master since I wrote him Imogen was slain: 'tis strange: Nor hear I from my mistress who did promise To yield me often tidings: neither know I What is betid to Cloten; but remain Perplex'd in all. The heavens still must work. Wherein I am false I am honest; not true, to be true. These present wars shall find I love my country, Even to the note o' the king, or I'll fall in them. All other doubts, by time let them be clear'd: Fortune brings in some boats that are not steer'd. [Exit] CYMBELINE ACT IV SCENE IV Wales: before the cave of Belarius. [Enter BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, and ARVIRAGUS. GUIDERIUS The noise is round about us. BELARIUS Let us from it. ARVIRAGUS What pleasure, sir, find we in life, to lock it From action and adventure? GUIDERIUS Nay, what hope Have we in hiding us? This way, the Romans Must or for Britons slay us, or receive us For barbarous and unnatural revolts During their use, and slay us after. BELARIUS Sons, We'll higher to the mountains; there secure us. To the king's party there's no going: newness Of Cloten's death--we being not known, not muster'd Among the bands--may drive us to a render Where we have lived, and so extort from's that Which we have done, whose answer would be death Drawn on with torture. GUIDERIUS This is, sir, a doubt In such a time nothing becoming you, Nor satisfying us. ARVIRAGUS It is not likely That when they hear the Roman horses neigh, Behold their quarter'd fires, have both their eyes And ears so cloy'd importantly as now, That they will waste their time upon our note, To know from whence we are. BELARIUS O, I am known Of many in the army: many years, Though Cloten then but young, you see, not wore him From my remembrance. And, besides, the king Hath not deserved my service nor your loves; Who find in my exile the want of breeding, The certainty of this hard life; aye hopeless To have the courtesy your cradle promised, But to be still hot summer's tamings and The shrinking slaves of winter. GUIDERIUS Than be so Better to cease to be. Pray, sir, to the army: I and my brother are not known; yourself So out of thought, and thereto so o'ergrown, Cannot be question'd. ARVIRAGUS By this sun that shines, I'll thither: what thing is it that I never Did see man die! scarce ever look'd on blood, But that of coward hares, hot goats, and venison! Never bestrid a horse, save one that had A rider like myself, who ne'er wore rowel Nor iron on his heel! I am ashamed To look upon the holy sun, to have The benefit of his blest beams, remaining So long a poor unknown. GUIDERIUS By heavens, I'll go: If you will bless me, sir, and give me leave, I'll take the better care, but if you will not, The hazard therefore due fall on me by The hands of Romans! ARVIRAGUS So say I amen. BELARIUS No reason I, since of your lives you set So slight a valuation, should reserve My crack'd one to more care. Have with you, boys! If in your country wars you chance to die, That is my bed too, lads, an there I'll lie: Lead, lead. [Aside] The time seems long; their blood thinks scorn, Till it fly out and show them princes born. [Exeunt] CYMBELINE ACT V SCENE I Britain. The Roman camp. [Enter POSTHUMUS, with a bloody handkerchief] POSTHUMUS LEONATUS Yea, bloody cloth, I'll keep thee, for I wish'd Thou shouldst be colour'd thus. You married ones, If each of you should take this course, how many Must murder wives much better than themselves For wrying but a little! O Pisanio! Every good servant does not all commands: No bond but to do just ones. Gods! if you Should have ta'en vengeance on my faults, I never Had lived to put on this: so had you saved The noble Imogen to repent, and struck Me, wretch more worth your vengeance. But, alack, You snatch some hence for little faults; that's love, To have them fall no more: you some permit To second ills with ills, each elder worse, And make them dread it, to the doers' thrift. But Imogen is your own: do your best wills, And make me blest to obey! I am brought hither Among the Italian gentry, and to fight Against my lady's kingdom: 'tis enough That, Britain, I have kill'd thy mistress; peace! I'll give no wound to thee. Therefore, good heavens, Hear patiently my purpose: I'll disrobe me Of these Italian weeds and suit myself As does a Briton peasant: so I'll fight Against the part I come with; so I'll die For thee, O Imogen, even for whom my life Is every breath a death; and thus, unknown, Pitied nor hated, to the face of peril Myself I'll dedicate. Let me make men know More valour in me than my habits show. Gods, put the strength o' the Leonati in me! To shame the guise o' the world, I will begin The fashion, less without and more within. [Exit] CYMBELINE ACT V SCENE II Field of battle between the British and Roman camps. [Enter, from one side, LUCIUS, IACHIMO, and the Roman Army: from the other side, the British Army; POSTHUMUS LEONATUS following, like a poor soldier. They march over and go out. Then enter again, in skirmish, IACHIMO and POSTHUMUS LEONATUS he vanquisheth and disarmeth IACHIMO, and then leaves him] IACHIMO The heaviness and guilt within my bosom Takes off my manhood: I have belied a lady, The princess of this country, and the air on't Revengingly enfeebles me; or could this carl, A very drudge of nature's, have subdued me In my profession? Knighthoods and honours, borne As I wear mine, are titles but of scorn. If that thy gentry, Britain, go before This lout as he exceeds our lords, the odds Is that we scarce are men and you are gods. [Exit] [The battle continues; the Britons fly; CYMBELINE is taken: then enter, to his rescue, BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, and ARVIRAGUS] BELARIUS Stand, stand! We have the advantage of the ground; The lane is guarded: nothing routs us but The villany of our fears. GUIDERIUS | | Stand, stand, and fight! ARVIRAGUS | [Re-enter POSTHUMUS LEONATUS, and seconds the Britons: they rescue CYMBELINE, and exeunt. Then re-enter LUCIUS, and IACHIMO, with IMOGEN] CAIUS LUCIUS Away, boy, from the troops, and save thyself; For friends kill friends, and the disorder's such As war were hoodwink'd. IACHIMO 'Tis their fresh supplies. CAIUS LUCIUS It is a day turn'd strangely: or betimes Let's reinforce, or fly. [Exeunt] CYMBELINE ACT V SCENE III Another part of the field. [Enter POSTHUMUS LEONATUS and a British Lord] Lord Camest thou from where they made the stand? POSTHUMUS LEONATUS I did. Though you, it seems, come from the fliers. Lord I did. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS No blame be to you, sir; for all was lost, But that the heavens fought: the king himself Of his wings destitute, the army broken, And but the backs of Britons seen, all flying Through a straight lane; the enemy full-hearted, Lolling the tongue with slaughtering, having work More plentiful than tools to do't, struck down Some mortally, some slightly touch'd, some falling Merely through fear; that the straight pass was damm'd With dead men hurt behind, and cowards living To die with lengthen'd shame. Lord Where was this lane? POSTHUMUS LEONATUS Close by the battle, ditch'd, and wall'd with turf; Which gave advantage to an ancient soldier, An honest one, I warrant; who deserved So long a breeding as his white beard came to, In doing this for's country: athwart the lane, He, with two striplings-lads more like to run The country base than to commit such slaughter With faces fit for masks, or rather fairer Than those for preservation cased, or shame-- Made good the passage; cried to those that fled, 'Our Britain s harts die flying, not our men: To darkness fleet souls that fly backwards. Stand; Or we are Romans and will give you that Like beasts which you shun beastly, and may save, But to look back in frown: stand, stand.' These three, Three thousand confident, in act as many-- For three performers are the file when all The rest do nothing--with this word 'Stand, stand,' Accommodated by the place, more charming With their own nobleness, which could have turn'd A distaff to a lance, gilded pale looks, Part shame, part spirit renew'd; that some, turn'd coward But by example--O, a sin in war, Damn'd in the first beginners!--gan to look The way that they did, and to grin like lions Upon the pikes o' the hunters. Then began A stop i' the chaser, a retire, anon A rout, confusion thick; forthwith they fly Chickens, the way which they stoop'd eagles; slaves, The strides they victors made: and now our cowards, Like fragments in hard voyages, became The life o' the need: having found the backdoor open Of the unguarded hearts, heavens, how they wound! Some slain before; some dying; some their friends O'er borne i' the former wave: ten, chased by one, Are now each one the slaughter-man of twenty: Those that would die or ere resist are grown The mortal bugs o' the field. Lord This was strange chance A narrow lane, an old man, and two boys. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS Nay, do not wonder at it: you are made Rather to wonder at the things you hear Than to work any. Will you rhyme upon't, And vent it for a mockery? Here is one: 'Two boys, an old man twice a boy, a lane, Preserved the Britons, was the Romans' bane.' Lord Nay, be not angry, sir. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS 'Lack, to what end? Who dares not stand his foe, I'll be his friend; For if he'll do as he is made to do, I know he'll quickly fly my friendship too. You have put me into rhyme. Lord Farewell; you're angry. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS Still going? [Exit Lord] This is a lord! O noble misery, To be i' the field, and ask 'what news?' of me! To-day how many would have given their honours To have saved their carcasses! took heel to do't, And yet died too! I, in mine own woe charm'd, Could not find death where I did hear him groan, Nor feel him where he struck: being an ugly monster, 'Tis strange he hides him in fresh cups, soft beds, Sweet words; or hath more ministers than we That draw his knives i' the war. Well, I will find him For being now a favourer to the Briton, No more a Briton, I have resumed again The part I came in: fight I will no more, But yield me to the veriest hind that shall Once touch my shoulder. Great the slaughter is Here made by the Roman; great the answer be Britons must take. For me, my ransom's death; On either side I come to spend my breath; Which neither here I'll keep nor bear again, But end it by some means for Imogen. [Enter two British Captains and Soldiers] First Captain Great Jupiter be praised! Lucius is taken. 'Tis thought the old man and his sons were angels. Second Captain There was a fourth man, in a silly habit, That gave the affront with them. First Captain So 'tis reported: But none of 'em can be found. Stand! who's there? POSTHUMUS LEONATUS A Roman, Who had not now been drooping here, if seconds Had answer'd him. Second Captain Lay hands on him; a dog! A leg of Rome shall not return to tell What crows have peck'd them here. He brags his service As if he were of note: bring him to the king. [Enter CYMBELINE, BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, ARVIRAGUS, PISANIO, Soldiers, Attendants, and Roman Captives. The Captains present POSTHUMUS LEONATUS to CYMBELINE, who delivers him over to a Gaoler: then exeunt omnes] CYMBELINE ACT V SCENE IV A British prison. [Enter POSTHUMUS LEONATUS and two Gaolers] First Gaoler You shall not now be stol'n, you have locks upon you; So graze as you find pasture. Second Gaoler Ay, or a stomach. [Exeunt Gaolers] POSTHUMUS LEONATUS Most welcome, bondage! for thou art away, think, to liberty: yet am I better Than one that's sick o' the gout; since he had rather Groan so in perpetuity than be cured By the sure physician, death, who is the key To unbar these locks. My conscience, thou art fetter'd More than my shanks and wrists: you good gods, give me The penitent instrument to pick that bolt, Then, free for ever! Is't enough I am sorry? So children temporal fathers do appease; Gods are more full of mercy. Must I repent? I cannot do it better than in gyves, Desired more than constrain'd: to satisfy, If of my freedom 'tis the main part, take No stricter render of me than my all. I know you are more clement than vile men, Who of their broken debtors take a third, A sixth, a tenth, letting them thrive again On their abatement: that's not my desire: For Imogen's dear life take mine; and though 'Tis not so dear, yet 'tis a life; you coin'd it: 'Tween man and man they weigh not every stamp; Though light, take pieces for the figure's sake: You rather mine, being yours: and so, great powers, If you will take this audit, take this life, And cancel these cold bonds. O Imogen! I'll speak to thee in silence. [Sleeps] [Solemn music. Enter, as in an apparition, SICILIUS LEONATUS, father to Posthumus Leonatus, an old man, attired like a warrior; leading in his hand an ancient matron, his wife, and mother to Posthumus Leonatus, with music before them: then, after other music, follow the two young Leonati, brothers to Posthumus Leonatus, with wounds as they died in the wars. They circle Posthumus Leonatus round, as he lies sleeping] Sicilius Leonatus No more, thou thunder-master, show Thy spite on mortal flies: With Mars fall out, with Juno chide, That thy adulteries Rates and revenges. Hath my poor boy done aught but well, Whose face I never saw? I died whilst in the womb he stay'd Attending nature's law: Whose father then, as men report Thou orphans' father art, Thou shouldst have been, and shielded him From this earth-vexing smart. Mother Lucina lent not me her aid, But took me in my throes; That from me was Posthumus ript, Came crying 'mongst his foes, A thing of pity! Sicilius Leonatus Great nature, like his ancestry, Moulded the stuff so fair, That he deserved the praise o' the world, As great Sicilius' heir. First Brother When once he was mature for man, In Britain where was he That could stand up his parallel; Or fruitful object be In eye of Imogen, that best Could deem his dignity? Mother With marriage wherefore was he mock'd, To be exiled, and thrown From Leonati seat, and cast From her his dearest one, Sweet Imogen? Sicilius Leonatus Why did you suffer Iachimo, Slight thing of Italy, To taint his nobler heart and brain With needless jealosy; And to become the geck and scorn O' th' other's villany? Second Brother For this from stiller seats we came, Our parents and us twain, That striking in our country's cause Fell bravely and were slain, Our fealty and Tenantius' right With honour to maintain. First Brother Like hardiment Posthumus hath To Cymbeline perform'd: Then, Jupiter, thou king of gods, Why hast thou thus adjourn'd The graces for his merits due, Being all to dolours turn'd? Sicilius Leonatus Thy crystal window ope; look out; No longer exercise Upon a valiant race thy harsh And potent injuries. Mother Since, Jupiter, our son is good, Take off his miseries. Sicilius Leonatus Peep through thy marble mansion; help; Or we poor ghosts will cry To the shining synod of the rest Against thy deity. First Brother | Help, Jupiter; or we appeal, | And from thy justice fly. Second Brother | [Jupiter descends in thunder and lightning, sitting upon an eagle: he throws a thunderbolt. The Apparitions fall on their knees] Jupiter No more, you petty spirits of region low, Offend our hearing; hush! How dare you ghosts Accuse the thunderer, whose bolt, you know, Sky-planted batters all rebelling coasts? Poor shadows of Elysium, hence, and rest Upon your never-withering banks of flowers: Be not with mortal accidents opprest; No care of yours it is; you know 'tis ours. Whom best I love I cross; to make my gift, The more delay'd, delighted. Be content; Your low-laid son our godhead will uplift: His comforts thrive, his trials well are spent. Our Jovial star reign'd at his birth, and in Our temple was he married. Rise, and fade. He shall be lord of lady Imogen, And happier much by his affliction made. This tablet lay upon his breast, wherein Our pleasure his full fortune doth confine: and so, away: no further with your din Express impatience, lest you stir up mine. Mount, eagle, to my palace crystalline. [Ascends] Sicilius Leonatus He came in thunder; his celestial breath Was sulphurous to smell: the holy eagle Stoop'd as to foot us: his ascension is More sweet than our blest fields: his royal bird Prunes the immortal wing and cloys his beak, As when his god is pleased. All Thanks, Jupiter! Sicilius Leonatus The marble pavement closes, he is enter'd His radiant root. Away! and, to be blest, Let us with care perform his great behest. [The Apparitions vanish] Posthumus Leonatus [Waking] Sleep, thou hast been a grandsire, and begot A father to me; and thou hast created A mother and two brothers: but, O scorn! Gone! they went hence so soon as they were born: And so I am awake. Poor wretches that depend On greatness' favour dream as I have done, Wake and find nothing. But, alas, I swerve: Many dream not to find, neither deserve, And yet are steep'd in favours: so am I, That have this golden chance and know not why. What fairies haunt this ground? A book? O rare one! Be not, as is our fangled world, a garment Nobler than that it covers: let thy effects So follow, to be most unlike our courtiers, As good as promise. [Reads] 'When as a lion's whelp shall, to himself unknown, without seeking find, and be embraced by a piece of tender air; and when from a stately cedar shall be lopped branches, which, being dead many years, shall after revive, be jointed to the old stock and freshly grow; then shall Posthumus end his miseries, Britain be fortunate and flourish in peace and plenty.' 'Tis still a dream, or else such stuff as madmen Tongue and brain not; either both or nothing; Or senseless speaking or a speaking such As sense cannot untie. Be what it is, The action of my life is like it, which I'll keep, if but for sympathy. [Re-enter First Gaoler] First Gaoler Come, sir, are you ready for death? POSTHUMUS LEONATUS Over-roasted rather; ready long ago. First Gaoler Hanging is the word, sir: if you be ready for that, you are well cooked. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS So, if I prove a good repast to the spectators, the dish pays the shot. First Gaoler A heavy reckoning for you, sir. But the comfort is, you shall be called to no more payments, fear no more tavern-bills; which are often the sadness of parting, as the procuring of mirth: you come in flint for want of meat, depart reeling with too much drink; sorry that you have paid too much, and sorry that you are paid too much; purse and brain both empty; the brain the heavier for being too light, the purse too light, being drawn of heaviness: of this contradiction you shall now be quit. O, the charity of a penny cord! It sums up thousands in a trice: you have no true debitor and creditor but it; of what's past, is, and to come, the discharge: your neck, sir, is pen, book and counters; so the acquittance follows. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS I am merrier to die than thou art to live. First Gaoler Indeed, sir, he that sleeps feels not the tooth-ache: but a man that were to sleep your sleep, and a hangman to help him to bed, I think he would change places with his officer; for, look you, sir, you know not which way you shall go. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS Yes, indeed do I, fellow. First Gaoler Your death has eyes in 's head then; I have not seen him so pictured: you must either be directed by some that take upon them to know, or do take upon yourself that which I am sure you do not know, or jump the after inquiry on your own peril: and how you shall speed in your journey's end, I think you'll never return to tell one. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS I tell thee, fellow, there are none want eyes to direct them the way I am going, but such as wink and will not use them. First Gaoler What an infinite mock is this, that a man should have the best use of eyes to see the way of blindness! I am sure hanging's the way of winking. [Enter a Messenger] Messenger Knock off his manacles; bring your prisoner to the king. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS Thou bring'st good news; I am called to be made free. First Gaoler I'll be hang'd then. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS Thou shalt be then freer than a gaoler; no bolts for the dead. [Exeunt POSTHUMUS LEONATUS and Messenger] First Gaoler Unless a man would marry a gallows and beget young gibbets, I never saw one so prone. Yet, on my conscience, there are verier knaves desire to live, for all he be a Roman: and there be some of them too that die against their wills; so should I, if I were one. I would we were all of one mind, and one mind good; O, there were desolation of gaolers and gallowses! I speak against my present profit, but my wish hath a preferment in 't. [Exeunt] CYMBELINE ACT V SCENE V Cymbeline's tent. [Enter CYMBELINE, BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, ARVIRAGUS, PISANIO, Lords, Officers, and Attendants] CYMBELINE Stand by my side, you whom the gods have made Preservers of my throne. Woe is my heart That the poor soldier that so richly fought, Whose rags shamed gilded arms, whose naked breast Stepp'd before larges of proof, cannot be found: He shall be happy that can find him, if Our grace can make him so. BELARIUS I never saw Such noble fury in so poor a thing; Such precious deeds in one that promises nought But beggary and poor looks. CYMBELINE No tidings of him? PISANIO He hath been search'd among the dead and living, But no trace of him. CYMBELINE To my grief, I am The heir of his reward; [To BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, and ARVIRAGUS] which I will add To you, the liver, heart and brain of Britain, By whom I grant she lives. 'Tis now the time To ask of whence you are. Report it. BELARIUS Sir, In Cambria are we born, and gentlemen: Further to boast were neither true nor modest, Unless I add, we are honest. CYMBELINE Bow your knees. Arise my knights o' the battle: I create you Companions to our person and will fit you With dignities becoming your estates. [Enter CORNELIUS and Ladies] There's business in these faces. Why so sadly Greet you our victory? you look like Romans, And not o' the court of Britain. CORNELIUS Hail, great king! To sour your happiness, I must report The queen is dead. CYMBELINE Who worse than a physician Would this report become? But I consider, By medicine life may be prolong'd, yet death Will seize the doctor too. How ended she? CORNELIUS With horror, madly dying, like her life, Which, being cruel to the world, concluded Most cruel to herself. What she confess'd I will report, so please you: these her women Can trip me, if I err; who with wet cheeks Were present when she finish'd. CYMBELINE Prithee, say. CORNELIUS First, she confess'd she never loved you, only Affected greatness got by you, not you: Married your royalty, was wife to your place; Abhorr'd your person. CYMBELINE She alone knew this; And, but she spoke it dying, I would not Believe her lips in opening it. Proceed. CORNELIUS Your daughter, whom she bore in hand to love With such integrity, she did confess Was as a scorpion to her sight; whose life, But that her flight prevented it, she had Ta'en off by poison. CYMBELINE O most delicate fiend! Who is 't can read a woman? Is there more? CORNELIUS More, sir, and worse. She did confess she had For you a mortal mineral; which, being took, Should by the minute feed on life and lingering By inches waste you: in which time she purposed, By watching, weeping, tendance, kissing, to O'ercome you with her show, and in time, When she had fitted you with her craft, to work Her son into the adoption of the crown: But, failing of her end by his strange absence, Grew shameless-desperate; open'd, in despite Of heaven and men, her purposes; repented The evils she hatch'd were not effected; so Despairing died. CYMBELINE Heard you all this, her women? First Lady We did, so please your highness. CYMBELINE Mine eyes Were not in fault, for she was beautiful; Mine ears, that heard her flattery; nor my heart, That thought her like her seeming; it had been vicious To have mistrusted her: yet, O my daughter! That it was folly in me, thou mayst say, And prove it in thy feeling. Heaven mend all! [Enter LUCIUS, IACHIMO, the Soothsayer, and other Roman Prisoners, guarded; POSTHUMUS LEONATUS behind, and IMOGEN] Thou comest not, Caius, now for tribute that The Britons have razed out, though with the loss Of many a bold one; whose kinsmen have made suit That their good souls may be appeased with slaughter Of you their captives, which ourself have granted: So think of your estate. CAIUS LUCIUS Consider, sir, the chance of war: the day Was yours by accident; had it gone with us, We should not, when the blood was cool, have threaten'd Our prisoners with the sword. But since the gods Will have it thus, that nothing but our lives May be call'd ransom, let it come: sufficeth A Roman with a Roman's heart can suffer: Augustus lives to think on't: and so much For my peculiar care. This one thing only I will entreat; my boy, a Briton born, Let him be ransom'd: never master had A page so kind, so duteous, diligent, So tender over his occasions, true, So feat, so nurse-like: let his virtue join With my request, which I make bold your highness Cannot deny; he hath done no Briton harm, Though he have served a Roman: save him, sir, And spare no blood beside. CYMBELINE I have surely seen him: His favour is familiar to me. Boy, Thou hast look'd thyself into my grace, And art mine own. I know not why, wherefore, To say 'live, boy:' ne'er thank thy master; live: And ask of Cymbeline what boon thou wilt, Fitting my bounty and thy state, I'll give it; Yea, though thou do demand a prisoner, The noblest ta'en. IMOGEN I humbly thank your highness. CAIUS LUCIUS I do not bid thee beg my life, good lad; And yet I know thou wilt. IMOGEN No, no: alack, There's other work in hand: I see a thing Bitter to me as death: your life, good master, Must shuffle for itself. CAIUS LUCIUS The boy disdains me, He leaves me, scorns me: briefly die their joys That place them on the truth of girls and boys. Why stands he so perplex'd? CYMBELINE What wouldst thou, boy? I love thee more and more: think more and more What's best to ask. Know'st him thou look'st on? speak, Wilt have him live? Is he thy kin? thy friend? IMOGEN He is a Roman; no more kin to me Than I to your highness; who, being born your vassal, Am something nearer. CYMBELINE Wherefore eyest him so? IMOGEN I'll tell you, sir, in private, if you please To give me hearing. CYMBELINE Ay, with all my heart, And lend my best attention. What's thy name? IMOGEN Fidele, sir. CYMBELINE Thou'rt my good youth, my page; I'll be thy master: walk with me; speak freely. [CYMBELINE and IMOGEN converse apart] BELARIUS Is not this boy revived from death? ARVIRAGUS One sand another Not more resembles that sweet rosy lad Who died, and was Fidele. What think you? GUIDERIUS The same dead thing alive. BELARIUS Peace, peace! see further; he eyes us not; forbear; Creatures may be alike: were 't he, I am sure He would have spoke to us. GUIDERIUS But we saw him dead. BELARIUS Be silent; let's see further. PISANIO [Aside] It is my mistress: Since she is living, let the time run on To good or bad. [CYMBELINE and IMOGEN come forward] CYMBELINE Come, stand thou by our side; Make thy demand aloud. [To IACHIMO] Sir, step you forth; Give answer to this boy, and do it freely; Or, by our greatness and the grace of it, Which is our honour, bitter torture shall Winnow the truth from falsehood. On, speak to him. IMOGEN My boon is, that this gentleman may render Of whom he had this ring. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS [Aside] What's that to him? CYMBELINE That diamond upon your finger, say How came it yours? IACHIMO Thou'lt torture me to leave unspoken that Which, to be spoke, would torture thee. CYMBELINE How! me? IACHIMO I am glad to be constrain'd to utter that Which torments me to conceal. By villany I got this ring: 'twas Leonatus' jewel; Whom thou didst banish; and--which more may grieve thee, As it doth me--a nobler sir ne'er lived 'Twixt sky and ground. Wilt thou hear more, my lord? CYMBELINE All that belongs to this. IACHIMO That paragon, thy daughter,-- For whom my heart drops blood, and my false spirits Quail to remember--Give me leave; I faint. CYMBELINE My daughter! what of her? Renew thy strength: I had rather thou shouldst live while nature will Than die ere I hear more: strive, man, and speak. IACHIMO Upon a time,--unhappy was the clock That struck the hour!--it was in Rome,--accursed The mansion where!--'twas at a feast,--O, would Our viands had been poison'd, or at least Those which I heaved to head!--the good Posthumus-- What should I say? he was too good to be Where ill men were; and was the best of all Amongst the rarest of good ones,--sitting sadly, Hearing us praise our loves of Italy For beauty that made barren the swell'd boast Of him that best could speak, for feature, laming The shrine of Venus, or straight-pight Minerva. Postures beyond brief nature, for condition, A shop of all the qualities that man Loves woman for, besides that hook of wiving, Fairness which strikes the eye-- CYMBELINE I stand on fire: Come to the matter. IACHIMO All too soon I shall, Unless thou wouldst grieve quickly. This Posthumus, Most like a noble lord in love and one That had a royal lover, took his hint; And, not dispraising whom we praised,--therein He was as calm as virtue--he began His mistress' picture; which by his tongue being made, And then a mind put in't, either our brags Were crack'd of kitchen-trolls, or his description Proved us unspeaking sots. CYMBELINE Nay, nay, to the purpose. IACHIMO Your daughter's chastity--there it begins. He spake of her, as Dian had hot dreams, And she alone were cold: whereat I, wretch, Made scruple of his praise; and wager'd with him Pieces of gold 'gainst this which then he wore Upon his honour'd finger, to attain In suit the place of's bed and win this ring By hers and mine adultery. He, true knight, No lesser of her honour confident Than I did truly find her, stakes this ring; And would so, had it been a carbuncle Of Phoebus' wheel, and might so safely, had it Been all the worth of's car. Away to Britain Post I in this design: well may you, sir, Remember me at court; where I was taught Of your chaste daughter the wide difference 'Twixt amorous and villanous. Being thus quench'd Of hope, not longing, mine Italian brain 'Gan in your duller Britain operate Most vilely; for my vantage, excellent: And, to be brief, my practise so prevail'd, That I return'd with simular proof enough To make the noble Leonatus mad, By wounding his belief in her renown With tokens thus, and thus; averting notes Of chamber-hanging, pictures, this her bracelet,-- O cunning, how I got it!--nay, some marks Of secret on her person, that he could not But think her bond of chastity quite crack'd, I having ta'en the forfeit. Whereupon-- Methinks, I see him now-- POSTHUMUS LEONATUS [Advancing] Ay, so thou dost, Italian fiend! Ay me, most credulous fool, Egregious murderer, thief, any thing That's due to all the villains past, in being, To come! O, give me cord, or knife, or poison, Some upright justicer! Thou, king, send out For torturers ingenious: it is I That all the abhorred things o' the earth amend By being worse than they. I am Posthumus, That kill'd thy daughter:--villain-like, I lie-- That caused a lesser villain than myself, A sacrilegious thief, to do't: the temple Of virtue was she; yea, and she herself. Spit, and throw stones, cast mire upon me, set The dogs o' the street to bay me: every villain Be call'd Posthumus Leonitus; and Be villany less than 'twas! O Imogen! My queen, my life, my wife! O Imogen, Imogen, Imogen! IMOGEN Peace, my lord; hear, hear-- POSTHUMUS LEONATUS Shall's have a play of this? Thou scornful page, There lie thy part. [Striking her: she falls] PISANIO O, gentlemen, help! Mine and your mistress! O, my lord Posthumus! You ne'er kill'd Imogen til now. Help, help! Mine honour'd lady! CYMBELINE Does the world go round? POSTHUMUS LEONATUS How come these staggers on me? PISANIO Wake, my mistress! CYMBELINE If this be so, the gods do mean to strike me To death with mortal joy. PISANIO How fares thy mistress? IMOGEN O, get thee from my sight; Thou gavest me poison: dangerous fellow, hence! Breathe not where princes are. CYMBELINE The tune of Imogen! PISANIO Lady, The gods throw stones of sulphur on me, if That box I gave you was not thought by me A precious thing: I had it from the queen. CYMBELINE New matter still? IMOGEN It poison'd me. CORNELIUS O gods! I left out one thing which the queen confess'd. Which must approve thee honest: 'If Pisanio Have,' said she, 'given his mistress that confection Which I gave him for cordial, she is served As I would serve a rat.' CYMBELINE What's this, Comelius? CORNELIUS The queen, sir, very oft importuned me To temper poisons for her, still pretending The satisfaction of her knowledge only In killing creatures vile, as cats and dogs, Of no esteem: I, dreading that her purpose Was of more danger, did compound for her A certain stuff, which, being ta'en, would cease The present power of life, but in short time All offices of nature should again Do their due functions. Have you ta'en of it? IMOGEN Most like I did, for I was dead. BELARIUS My boys, There was our error. GUIDERIUS This is, sure, Fidele. IMOGEN Why did you throw your wedded lady from you? Think that you are upon a rock; and now Throw me again. [Embracing him] POSTHUMUS LEONATUS Hang there like a fruit, my soul, Till the tree die! CYMBELINE How now, my flesh, my child! What, makest thou me a dullard in this act? Wilt thou not speak to me? IMOGEN [Kneeling] Your blessing, sir. BELARIUS [To GUIDERIUS and ARVIRAGUS] Though you did love this youth, I blame ye not: You had a motive for't. CYMBELINE My tears that fall Prove holy water on thee! Imogen, Thy mother's dead. IMOGEN I am sorry for't, my lord. CYMBELINE O, she was nought; and long of her it was That we meet here so strangely: but her son Is gone, we know not how nor where. PISANIO My lord, Now fear is from me, I'll speak troth. Lord Cloten, Upon my lady's missing, came to me With his sword drawn; foam'd at the mouth, and swore, If I discover'd not which way she was gone, It was my instant death. By accident, had a feigned letter of my master's Then in my pocket; which directed him To seek her on the mountains near to Milford; Where, in a frenzy, in my master's garments, Which he enforced from me, away he posts With unchaste purpose and with oath to violate My lady's honour: what became of him I further know not. GUIDERIUS Let me end the story: I slew him there. CYMBELINE Marry, the gods forfend! I would not thy good deeds should from my lips Pluck a bard sentence: prithee, valiant youth, Deny't again. GUIDERIUS I have spoke it, and I did it. CYMBELINE He was a prince. GUIDERIUS A most incivil one: the wrongs he did me Were nothing prince-like; for he did provoke me With language that would make me spurn the sea, If it could so roar to me: I cut off's head; And am right glad he is not standing here To tell this tale of mine. CYMBELINE I am sorry for thee: By thine own tongue thou art condemn'd, and must Endure our law: thou'rt dead. IMOGEN That headless man I thought had been my lord. CYMBELINE Bind the offender, And take him from our presence. BELARIUS Stay, sir king: This man is better than the man he slew, As well descended as thyself; and hath More of thee merited than a band of Clotens Had ever scar for. [To the Guard] Let his arms alone; They were not born for bondage. CYMBELINE Why, old soldier, Wilt thou undo the worth thou art unpaid for, By tasting of our wrath? How of descent As good as we? ARVIRAGUS In that he spake too far. CYMBELINE And thou shalt die for't. BELARIUS We will die all three: But I will prove that two on's are as good As I have given out him. My sons, I must, For mine own part, unfold a dangerous speech, Though, haply, well for you. ARVIRAGUS Your danger's ours. GUIDERIUS And our good his. BELARIUS Have at it then, by leave. Thou hadst, great king, a subject who Was call'd Belarius. CYMBELINE What of him? he is A banish'd traitor. BELARIUS He it is that hath Assumed this age; indeed a banish'd man; I know not how a traitor. CYMBELINE Take him hence: The whole world shall not save him. BELARIUS Not too hot: First pay me for the nursing of thy sons; And let it be confiscate all, so soon As I have received it. CYMBELINE Nursing of my sons! BELARIUS I am too blunt and saucy: here's my knee: Ere I arise, I will prefer my sons; Then spare not the old father. Mighty sir, These two young gentlemen, that call me father And think they are my sons, are none of mine; They are the issue of your loins, my liege, And blood of your begetting. CYMBELINE How! my issue! BELARIUS So sure as you your father's. I, old Morgan, Am that Belarius whom you sometime banish'd: Your pleasure was my mere offence, my punishment Itself, and all my treason; that I suffer'd Was all the harm I did. These gentle princes-- For such and so they are--these twenty years Have I train'd up: those arts they have as I Could put into them; my breeding was, sir, as Your highness knows. Their nurse, Euriphile, Whom for the theft I wedded, stole these children Upon my banishment: I moved her to't, Having received the punishment before, For that which I did then: beaten for loyalty Excited me to treason: their dear loss, The more of you 'twas felt, the more it shaped Unto my end of stealing them. But, gracious sir, Here are your sons again; and I must lose Two of the sweet'st companions in the world. The benediction of these covering heavens Fall on their heads like dew! for they are worthy To inlay heaven with stars. CYMBELINE Thou weep'st, and speak'st. The service that you three have done is more Unlike than this thou tell'st. I lost my children: If these be they, I know not how to wish A pair of worthier sons. BELARIUS Be pleased awhile. This gentleman, whom I call Polydore, Most worthy prince, as yours, is true Guiderius: This gentleman, my Cadwal, Arviragus, Your younger princely son; he, sir, was lapp'd In a most curious mantle, wrought by the hand Of his queen mother, which for more probation I can with ease produce. CYMBELINE Guiderius had Upon his neck a mole, a sanguine star; It was a mark of wonder. BELARIUS This is he; Who hath upon him still that natural stamp: It was wise nature's end in the donation, To be his evidence now. CYMBELINE O, what, am I A mother to the birth of three? Ne'er mother Rejoiced deliverance more. Blest pray you be, That, after this strange starting from your orbs, may reign in them now! O Imogen, Thou hast lost by this a kingdom. IMOGEN No, my lord; I have got two worlds by 't. O my gentle brothers, Have we thus met? O, never say hereafter But I am truest speaker you call'd me brother, When I was but your sister; I you brothers, When ye were so indeed. CYMBELINE Did you e'er meet? ARVIRAGUS Ay, my good lord. GUIDERIUS And at first meeting loved; Continued so, until we thought he died. CORNELIUS By the queen's dram she swallow'd. CYMBELINE O rare instinct! When shall I hear all through? This fierce abridgement Hath to it circumstantial branches, which Distinction should be rich in. Where? how lived You? And when came you to serve our Roman captive? How parted with your brothers? how first met them? Why fled you from the court? and whither? These, And your three motives to the battle, with I know not how much more, should be demanded; And all the other by-dependencies, From chance to chance: but nor the time nor place Will serve our long inter'gatories. See, Posthumus anchors upon Imogen, And she, like harmless lightning, throws her eye On him, her brother, me, her master, hitting Each object with a joy: the counterchange Is severally in all. Let's quit this ground, And smoke the temple with our sacrifices. [To BELARIUS] Thou art my brother; so we'll hold thee ever. IMOGEN You are my father too, and did relieve me, To see this gracious season. CYMBELINE All o'erjoy'd, Save these in bonds: let them be joyful too, For they shall taste our comfort. IMOGEN My good master, I will yet do you service. CAIUS LUCIUS Happy be you! CYMBELINE The forlorn soldier, that so nobly fought, He would have well becomed this place, and graced The thankings of a king. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS I am, sir, The soldier that did company these three In poor beseeming; 'twas a fitment for The purpose I then follow'd. That I was he, Speak, Iachimo: I had you down and might Have made you finish. IACHIMO [Kneeling] I am down again: But now my heavy conscience sinks my knee, As then your force did. Take that life, beseech you, Which I so often owe: but your ring first; And here the bracelet of the truest princess That ever swore her faith. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS Kneel not to me: The power that I have on you is, to spare you; The malice towards you to forgive you: live, And deal with others better. CYMBELINE Nobly doom'd! We'll learn our freeness of a son-in-law; Pardon's the word to all. ARVIRAGUS You holp us, sir, As you did mean indeed to be our brother; Joy'd are we that you are. POSTHUMUS LEONATUS Your servant, princes. Good my lord of Rome, Call forth your soothsayer: as I slept, methought Great Jupiter, upon his eagle back'd, Appear'd to me, with other spritely shows Of mine own kindred: when I waked, I found This label on my bosom; whose containing Is so from sense in hardness, that I can Make no collection of it: let him show His skill in the construction. CAIUS LUCIUS Philarmonus! Soothsayer Here, my good lord. CAIUS LUCIUS Read, and declare the meaning. Soothsayer [Reads] 'When as a lion's whelp shall, to himself unknown, without seeking find, and be embraced by a piece of tender air; and when from a stately cedar shall be lopped branches, which, being dead many years, shall after revive, be jointed to the old stock, and freshly grow; then shall Posthumus end his miseries, Britain be fortunate and flourish in peace and plenty.' Thou, Leonatus, art the lion's whelp; The fit and apt construction of thy name, Being Leonatus, doth import so much. [To CYMBELINE] The piece of tender air, thy virtuous daughter, Which we call 'mollis aer;' and 'mollis aer' We term it 'mulier:' which 'mulier' I divine Is this most constant wife; who, even now, Answering the letter of the oracle, Unknown to you, unsought, were clipp'd about With this most tender air. CYMBELINE This hath some seeming. Soothsayer The lofty cedar, royal Cymbeline, Personates thee: and thy lopp'd branches point Thy two sons forth; who, by Belarius stol'n, For many years thought dead, are now revived, To the majestic cedar join'd, whose issue Promises Britain peace and plenty. CYMBELINE Well My peace we will begin. And, Caius Lucius, Although the victor, we submit to Caesar, And to the Roman empire; promising To pay our wonted tribute, from the which We were dissuaded by our wicked queen; Whom heavens, in justice, both on her and hers, Have laid most heavy hand. Soothsayer The fingers of the powers above do tune The harmony of this peace. The vision Which I made known to Lucius, ere the stroke Of this yet scarce-cold battle, at this instant Is full accomplish'd; for the Roman eagle, From south to west on wing soaring aloft, Lessen'd herself, and in the beams o' the sun So vanish'd: which foreshow'd our princely eagle, The imperial Caesar, should again unite His favour with the radiant Cymbeline, Which shines here in the west. CYMBELINE Laud we the gods; And let our crooked smokes climb to their nostrils From our blest altars. Publish we this peace To all our subjects. Set we forward: let A Roman and a British ensign wave Friendly together: so through Lud's-town march: And in the temple of great Jupiter Our peace we'll ratify; seal it with feasts. Set on there! Never was a war did cease, Ere bloody hands were wash'd, with such a peace. [Exeunt] LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST DRAMATIS PERSONAE FERDINAND king of Navarre. BIRON | | LONGAVILLE | lords attending on the King. | DUMAIN | BOYET | | lords attending on the Princess of France. MERCADE | DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO a fantastical Spaniard. SIR NATHANIEL a curate. HOLOFERNES a schoolmaster. DULL a constable. COSTARD a clown. MOTH page to Armado. A Forester. The PRINCESS of France: (PRINCESS:) ROSALINE | | MARIA | ladies attending on the Princess. | KATHARINE | JAQUENETTA a country wench. Lords, Attendants, &c. (First Lord:) SCENE Navarre. LOVE'S LABOURS LOST ACT I SCENE I The king of Navarre's park. [Enter FERDINAND king of Navarre, BIRON, LONGAVILLE and DUMAIN] FERDINAND Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives, Live register'd upon our brazen tombs And then grace us in the disgrace of death; When, spite of cormorant devouring Time, The endeavor of this present breath may buy That honour which shall bate his scythe's keen edge And make us heirs of all eternity. Therefore, brave conquerors,--for so you are, That war against your own affections And the huge army of the world's desires,-- Our late edict shall strongly stand in force: Navarre shall be the wonder of the world; Our court shall be a little Academe, Still and contemplative in living art. You three, Biron, Dumain, and Longaville, Have sworn for three years' term to live with me My fellow-scholars, and to keep those statutes That are recorded in this schedule here: Your oaths are pass'd; and now subscribe your names, That his own hand may strike his honour down That violates the smallest branch herein: If you are arm'd to do as sworn to do, Subscribe to your deep oaths, and keep it too. LONGAVILLE I am resolved; 'tis but a three years' fast: The mind shall banquet, though the body pine: Fat paunches have lean pates, and dainty bits Make rich the ribs, but bankrupt quite the wits. DUMAIN My loving lord, Dumain is mortified: The grosser manner of these world's delights He throws upon the gross world's baser slaves: To love, to wealth, to pomp, I pine and die; With all these living in philosophy. BIRON I can but say their protestation over; So much, dear liege, I have already sworn, That is, to live and study here three years. But there are other strict observances; As, not to see a woman in that term, Which I hope well is not enrolled there; And one day in a week to touch no food And but one meal on every day beside, The which I hope is not enrolled there; And then, to sleep but three hours in the night, And not be seen to wink of all the day-- When I was wont to think no harm all night And make a dark night too of half the day-- Which I hope well is not enrolled there: O, these are barren tasks, too hard to keep, Not to see ladies, study, fast, not sleep! FERDINAND Your oath is pass'd to pass away from these. BIRON Let me say no, my liege, an if you please: I only swore to study with your grace And stay here in your court for three years' space. LONGAVILLE You swore to that, Biron, and to the rest. BIRON By yea and nay, sir, then I swore in jest. What is the end of study? let me know. FERDINAND Why, that to know, which else we should not know. BIRON Things hid and barr'd, you mean, from common sense? FERDINAND Ay, that is study's godlike recompense. BIRON Come on, then; I will swear to study so, To know the thing I am forbid to know: As thus,--to study where I well may dine, When I to feast expressly am forbid; Or study where to meet some mistress fine, When mistresses from common sense are hid; Or, having sworn too hard a keeping oath, Study to break it and not break my troth. If study's gain be thus and this be so, Study knows that which yet it doth not know: Swear me to this, and I will ne'er say no. FERDINAND These be the stops that hinder study quite And train our intellects to vain delight. BIRON Why, all delights are vain; but that most vain, Which with pain purchased doth inherit pain: As, painfully to pore upon a book To seek the light of truth; while truth the while Doth falsely blind the eyesight of his look: Light seeking light doth light of light beguile: So, ere you find where light in darkness lies, Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes. Study me how to please the eye indeed By fixing it upon a fairer eye, Who dazzling so, that eye shall be his heed And give him light that it was blinded by. Study is like the heaven's glorious sun That will not be deep-search'd with saucy looks: Small have continual plodders ever won Save base authority from others' books These earthly godfathers of heaven's lights That give a name to every fixed star Have no more profit of their shining nights Than those that walk and wot not what they are. Too much to know is to know nought but fame; And every godfather can give a name. FERDINAND How well he's read, to reason against reading! DUMAIN Proceeded well, to stop all good proceeding! LONGAVILLE He weeds the corn and still lets grow the weeding. BIRON The spring is near when green geese are a-breeding. DUMAIN How follows that? BIRON Fit in his place and time. DUMAIN In reason nothing. BIRON Something then in rhyme. FERDINAND Biron is like an envious sneaping frost, That bites the first-born infants of the spring. BIRON Well, say I am; why should proud summer boast Before the birds have any cause to sing? Why should I joy in any abortive birth? At Christmas I no more desire a rose Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled mirth; But like of each thing that in season grows. So you, to study now it is too late, Climb o'er the house to unlock the little gate. FERDINAND Well, sit you out: go home, Biron: adieu. BIRON No, my good lord; I have sworn to stay with you: And though I have for barbarism spoke more Than for that angel knowledge you can say, Yet confident I'll keep what I have swore And bide the penance of each three years' day. Give me the paper; let me read the same; And to the strict'st decrees I'll write my name. FERDINAND How well this yielding rescues thee from shame! BIRON [Reads] 'Item, That no woman shall come within a mile of my court:' Hath this been proclaimed? LONGAVILLE Four days ago. BIRON Let's see the penalty. [Reads] 'On pain of losing her tongue.' Who devised this penalty? LONGAVILLE Marry, that did I. BIRON Sweet lord, and why? LONGAVILLE To fright them hence with that dread penalty. BIRON A dangerous law against gentility! [Reads] 'Item, If any man be seen to talk with a woman within the term of three years, he shall endure such public shame as the rest of the court can possibly devise.' This article, my liege, yourself must break; For well you know here comes in embassy The French king's daughter with yourself to speak-- A maid of grace and complete majesty-- About surrender up of Aquitaine To her decrepit, sick and bedrid father: Therefore this article is made in vain, Or vainly comes the admired princess hither. FERDINAND What say you, lords? Why, this was quite forgot. BIRON So study evermore is overshot: While it doth study to have what it would It doth forget to do the thing it should, And when it hath the thing it hunteth most, 'Tis won as towns with fire, so won, so lost. FERDINAND We must of force dispense with this decree; She must lie here on mere necessity. BIRON Necessity will make us all forsworn Three thousand times within this three years' space; For every man with his affects is born, Not by might master'd but by special grace: If I break faith, this word shall speak for me; I am forsworn on 'mere necessity.' So to the laws at large I write my name: [Subscribes] And he that breaks them in the least degree Stands in attainder of eternal shame: Suggestions are to other as to me; But I believe, although I seem so loath, I am the last that will last keep his oath. But is there no quick recreation granted? FERDINAND Ay, that there is. Our court, you know, is haunted With a refined traveller of Spain; A man in all the world's new fashion planted, That hath a mint of phrases in his brain; One whom the music of his own vain tongue Doth ravish like enchanting harmony; A man of complements, whom right and wrong Have chose as umpire of their mutiny: This child of fancy, that Armado hight, For interim to our studies shall relate In high-born words the worth of many a knight From tawny Spain lost in the world's debate. How you delight, my lords, I know not, I; But, I protest, I love to hear him lie And I will use him for my minstrelsy. BIRON Armado is a most illustrious wight, A man of fire-new words, fashion's own knight. LONGAVILLE Costard the swain and he shall be our sport; And so to study, three years is but short. [Enter DULL with a letter, and COSTARD] DULL Which is the duke's own person? BIRON This, fellow: what wouldst? DULL I myself reprehend his own person, for I am his grace's tharborough: but I would see his own person in flesh and blood. BIRON This is he. DULL Signior Arme--Arme--commends you. There's villany abroad: this letter will tell you more. COSTARD Sir, the contempts thereof are as touching me. FERDINAND A letter from the magnificent Armado. BIRON How low soever the matter, I hope in God for high words. LONGAVILLE A high hope for a low heaven: God grant us patience! BIRON To hear? or forbear laughing? LONGAVILLE To hear meekly, sir, and to laugh moderately; or to forbear both. BIRON Well, sir, be it as the style shall give us cause to climb in the merriness. COSTARD The matter is to me, sir, as concerning Jaquenetta. The manner of it is, I was taken with the manner. BIRON In what manner? COSTARD In manner and form following, sir; all those three: I was seen with her in the manor-house, sitting with her upon the form, and taken following her into the park; which, put together, is in manner and form following. Now, sir, for the manner,--it is the manner of a man to speak to a woman: for the form,-- in some form. BIRON For the following, sir? COSTARD As it shall follow in my correction: and God defend the right! FERDINAND Will you hear this letter with attention? BIRON As we would hear an oracle. COSTARD Such is the simplicity of man to hearken after the flesh. FERDINAND [Reads] 'Great deputy, the welkin's vicegerent and sole dominator of Navarre, my soul's earth's god, and body's fostering patron.' COSTARD Not a word of Costard yet. FERDINAND [Reads] 'So it is,'-- COSTARD It may be so: but if he say it is so, he is, in telling true, but so. FERDINAND Peace! COSTARD Be to me and every man that dares not fight! FERDINAND No words! COSTARD Of other men's secrets, I beseech you. FERDINAND [Reads] 'So it is, besieged with sable-coloured melancholy, I did commend the black-oppressing humour to the most wholesome physic of thy health-giving air; and, as I am a gentleman, betook myself to walk. The time when. About the sixth hour; when beasts most graze, birds best peck, and men sit down to that nourishment which is called supper: so much for the time when. Now for the ground which; which, I mean, I walked upon: it is y-cleped thy park. Then for the place where; where, I mean, I did encounter that obscene and preposterous event, that draweth from my snow-white pen the ebon-coloured ink, which here thou viewest, beholdest, surveyest, or seest; but to the place where; it standeth north-north-east and by east from the west corner of thy curious- knotted garden: there did I see that low-spirited swain, that base minnow of thy mirth,'-- COSTARD Me? FERDINAND [Reads] 'that unlettered small-knowing soul,'-- COSTARD Me? FERDINAND [Reads] 'that shallow vassal,'-- COSTARD Still me? FERDINAND [Reads] 'which, as I remember, hight Costard,'-- COSTARD O, me! FERDINAND [Reads] 'sorted and consorted, contrary to thy established proclaimed edict and continent canon, which with,--O, with--but with this I passion to say wherewith,-- COSTARD With a wench. FERDINAND [Reads] 'with a child of our grandmother Eve, a female; or, for thy more sweet understanding, a woman. Him I, as my ever-esteemed duty pricks me on, have sent to thee, to receive the meed of punishment, by thy sweet grace's officer, Anthony Dull; a man of good repute, carriage, bearing, and estimation.' DULL 'Me, an't shall please you; I am Anthony Dull. FERDINAND [Reads] 'For Jaquenetta,--so is the weaker vessel called which I apprehended with the aforesaid swain,--I keep her as a vessel of the law's fury; and shall, at the least of thy sweet notice, bring her to trial. Thine, in all compliments of devoted and heart-burning heat of duty. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO.' BIRON This is not so well as I looked for, but the best that ever I heard. FERDINAND Ay, the best for the worst. But, sirrah, what say you to this? COSTARD Sir, I confess the wench. FERDINAND Did you hear the proclamation? COSTARD I do confess much of the hearing it but little of the marking of it. FERDINAND It was proclaimed a year's imprisonment, to be taken with a wench. COSTARD I was taken with none, sir: I was taken with a damsel. FERDINAND Well, it was proclaimed 'damsel.' COSTARD This was no damsel, neither, sir; she was a virgin. FERDINAND It is so varied, too; for it was proclaimed 'virgin.' COSTARD If it were, I deny her virginity: I was taken with a maid. FERDINAND This maid will not serve your turn, sir. COSTARD This maid will serve my turn, sir. FERDINAND Sir, I will pronounce your sentence: you shall fast a week with bran and water. COSTARD I had rather pray a month with mutton and porridge. FERDINAND And Don Armado shall be your keeper. My Lord Biron, see him deliver'd o'er: And go we, lords, to put in practise that Which each to other hath so strongly sworn. [Exeunt FERDINAND, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN] BIRON I'll lay my head to any good man's hat, These oaths and laws will prove an idle scorn. Sirrah, come on. COSTARD I suffer for the truth, sir; for true it is, I was taken with Jaquenetta, and Jaquenetta is a true girl; and therefore welcome the sour cup of prosperity! Affliction may one day smile again; and till then, sit thee down, sorrow! [Exeunt] LOVE'S LABOURS LOST ACT I SCENE II The same. [Enter DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO and MOTH] DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO Boy, what sign is it when a man of great spirit grows melancholy? MOTH A great sign, sir, that he will look sad. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO Why, sadness is one and the self-same thing, dear imp. MOTH No, no; O Lord, sir, no. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO How canst thou part sadness and melancholy, my tender juvenal? MOTH By a familiar demonstration of the working, my tough senior. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO Why tough senior? why tough senior? MOTH Why tender juvenal? why tender juvenal? DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO I spoke it, tender juvenal, as a congruent epitheton appertaining to thy young days, which we may nominate tender. MOTH And I, tough senior, as an appertinent title to your old time, which we may name tough. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO Pretty and apt. MOTH How mean you, sir? I pretty, and my saying apt? or I apt, and my saying pretty? DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO Thou pretty, because little. MOTH Little pretty, because little. Wherefore apt? DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO And therefore apt, because quick. MOTH Speak you this in my praise, master? DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO In thy condign praise. MOTH I will praise an eel with the same praise. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO What, that an eel is ingenious? MOTH That an eel is quick. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO I do say thou art quick in answers: thou heatest my blood. MOTH I am answered, sir. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO I love not to be crossed. MOTH [Aside] He speaks the mere contrary; crosses love not him. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO I have promised to study three years with the duke. MOTH You may do it in an hour, sir. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO Impossible. MOTH How many is one thrice told? DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO I am ill at reckoning; it fitteth the spirit of a tapster. MOTH You are a gentleman and a gamester, sir. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO I confess both: they are both the varnish of a complete man. MOTH Then, I am sure, you know how much the gross sum of deuce-ace amounts to. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO It doth amount to one more than two. MOTH Which the base vulgar do call three. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO True. MOTH Why, sir, is this such a piece of study? Now here is three studied, ere ye'll thrice wink: and how easy it is to put 'years' to the word 'three,' and study three years in two words, the dancing horse will tell you. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO A most fine figure! MOTH To prove you a cipher. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO I will hereupon confess I am in love: and as it is base for a soldier to love, so am I in love with a base wench. If drawing my sword against the humour of affection would deliver me from the reprobate thought of it, I would take Desire prisoner, and ransom him to any French courtier for a new-devised courtesy. I think scorn to sigh: methinks I should outswear Cupid. Comfort, me, boy: what great men have been in love? MOTH Hercules, master. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO Most sweet Hercules! More authority, dear boy, name more; and, sweet my child, let them be men of good repute and carriage. MOTH Samson, master: he was a man of good carriage, great carriage, for he carried the town-gates on his back like a porter: and he was in love. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO O well-knit Samson! strong-jointed Samson! I do excel thee in my rapier as much as thou didst me in carrying gates. I am in love too. Who was Samson's love, my dear Moth? MOTH A woman, master. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO Of what complexion? MOTH Of all the four, or the three, or the two, or one of the four. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO Tell me precisely of what complexion. MOTH Of the sea-water green, sir. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO Is that one of the four complexions? MOTH As I have read, sir; and the best of them too. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO Green indeed is the colour of lovers; but to have a love of that colour, methinks Samson had small reason for it. He surely affected her for her wit. MOTH It was so, sir; for she had a green wit. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO My love is most immaculate white and red. MOTH Most maculate thoughts, master, are masked under such colours. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO Define, define, well-educated infant. MOTH My father's wit and my mother's tongue, assist me! DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO Sweet invocation of a child; most pretty and pathetical! MOTH If she be made of white and red, Her faults will ne'er be known, For blushing cheeks by faults are bred And fears by pale white shown: Then if she fear, or be to blame, By this you shall not know, For still her cheeks possess the same Which native she doth owe. A dangerous rhyme, master, against the reason of white and red. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO Is there not a ballad, boy, of the King and the Beggar? MOTH The world was very guilty of such a ballad some three ages since: but I think now 'tis not to be found; or, if it were, it would neither serve for the writing nor the tune. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO I will have that subject newly writ o'er, that I may example my digression by some mighty precedent. Boy, I do love that country girl that I took in the park with the rational hind Costard: she deserves well. MOTH [Aside] To be whipped; and yet a better love than my master. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO Sing, boy; my spirit grows heavy in love. MOTH And that's great marvel, loving a light wench. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO I say, sing. MOTH Forbear till this company be past. [Enter DULL, COSTARD, and JAQUENETTA] DULL Sir, the duke's pleasure is, that you keep Costard safe: and you must suffer him to take no delight nor no penance; but a' must fast three days a week. For this damsel, I must keep her at the park: she is allowed for the day-woman. Fare you well. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO I do betray myself with blushing. Maid! JAQUENETTA Man? DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO I will visit thee at the lodge. JAQUENETTA That's hereby. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO I know where it is situate. JAQUENETTA Lord, how wise you are! DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO I will tell thee wonders. JAQUENETTA With that face? DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO I love thee. JAQUENETTA So I heard you say. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO And so, farewell. JAQUENETTA Fair weather after you! DULL Come, Jaquenetta, away! [Exeunt DULL and JAQUENETTA] DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO Villain, thou shalt fast for thy offences ere thou be pardoned. COSTARD Well, sir, I hope, when I do it, I shall do it on a full stomach. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO Thou shalt be heavily punished. COSTARD I am more bound to you than your fellows, for they are but lightly rewarded. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO Take away this villain; shut him up. MOTH Come, you transgressing slave; away! COSTARD Let me not be pent up, sir: I will fast, being loose. MOTH No, sir; that were fast and loose: thou shalt to prison. COSTARD Well, if ever I do see the merry days of desolation that I have seen, some shall see. MOTH What shall some see? COSTARD Nay, nothing, Master Moth, but what they look upon. It is not for prisoners to be too silent in their words; and therefore I will say nothing: I thank God I have as little patience as another man; and therefore I can be quiet. [Exeunt MOTH and COSTARD] DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO I do affect the very ground, which is base, where her shoe, which is baser, guided by her foot, which is basest, doth tread. I shall be forsworn, which is a great argument of falsehood, if I love. And how can that be true love which is falsely attempted? Love is a familiar; Love is a devil: there is no evil angel but Love. Yet was Samson so tempted, and he had an excellent strength; yet was Solomon so seduced, and he had a very good wit. Cupid's butt-shaft is too hard for Hercules' club; and therefore too much odds for a Spaniard's rapier. The first and second cause will not serve my turn; the passado he respects not, the duello he regards not: his disgrace is to be called boy; but his glory is to subdue men. Adieu, valour! rust rapier! be still, drum! for your manager is in love; yea, he loveth. Assist me, some extemporal god of rhyme, for I am sure I shall turn sonnet. Devise, wit; write, pen; for I am for whole volumes in folio. [Exit] LOVE'S LABOURS LOST ACT II SCENE I The same. [Enter the PRINCESS of France, ROSALINE, MARIA, KATHARINE, BOYET, Lords, and other Attendants] BOYET Now, madam, summon up your dearest spirits: Consider who the king your father sends, To whom he sends, and what's his embassy: Yourself, held precious in the world's esteem, To parley with the sole inheritor Of all perfections that a man may owe, Matchless Navarre; the plea of no less weight Than Aquitaine, a dowry for a queen. Be now as prodigal of all dear grace As Nature was in making graces dear When she did starve the general world beside And prodigally gave them all to you. PRINCESS Good Lord Boyet, my beauty, though but mean, Needs not the painted flourish of your praise: Beauty is bought by judgement of the eye, Not utter'd by base sale of chapmen's tongues: I am less proud to hear you tell my worth Than you much willing to be counted wise In spending your wit in the praise of mine. But now to task the tasker: good Boyet, You are not ignorant, all-telling fame Doth noise abroad, Navarre hath made a vow, Till painful study shall outwear three years, No woman may approach his silent court: Therefore to's seemeth it a needful course, Before we enter his forbidden gates, To know his pleasure; and in that behalf, Bold of your worthiness, we single you As our best-moving fair solicitor. Tell him, the daughter of the King of France, On serious business, craving quick dispatch, Importunes personal conference with his grace: Haste, signify so much; while we attend, Like humble-visaged suitors, his high will. BOYET Proud of employment, willingly I go. PRINCESS All pride is willing pride, and yours is so. [Exit BOYET] Who are the votaries, my loving lords, That are vow-fellows with this virtuous duke? First Lord Lord Longaville is one. PRINCESS Know you the man? MARIA I know him, madam: at a marriage-feast, Between Lord Perigort and the beauteous heir Of Jaques Falconbridge, solemnized In Normandy, saw I this Longaville: A man of sovereign parts he is esteem'd; Well fitted in arts, glorious in arms: Nothing becomes him ill that he would well. The only soil of his fair virtue's gloss, If virtue's gloss will stain with any soil, Is a sharp wit matched with too blunt a will; Whose edge hath power to cut, whose will still wills It should none spare that come within his power. PRINCESS Some merry mocking lord, belike; is't so? MARIA They say so most that most his humours know. PRINCESS Such short-lived wits do wither as they grow. Who are the rest? KATHARINE The young Dumain, a well-accomplished youth, Of all that virtue love for virtue loved: Most power to do most harm, least knowing ill; For he hath wit to make an ill shape good, And shape to win grace though he had no wit. I saw him at the Duke Alencon's once; And much too little of that good I saw Is my report to his great worthiness. ROSALINE Another of these students at that time Was there with him, if I have heard a truth. Biron they call him; but a merrier man, Within the limit of becoming mirth, I never spent an hour's talk withal: His eye begets occasion for his wit; For every object that the one doth catch The other turns to a mirth-moving jest, Which his fair tongue, conceit's expositor, Delivers in such apt and gracious words That aged ears play truant at his tales And younger hearings are quite ravished; So sweet and voluble is his discourse. PRINCESS God bless my ladies! are they all in love, That every one her own hath garnished With such bedecking ornaments of praise? First Lord Here comes Boyet. [Re-enter BOYET] PRINCESS Now, what admittance, lord? BOYET Navarre had notice of your fair approach; And he and his competitors in oath Were all address'd to meet you, gentle lady, Before I came. Marry, thus much I have learnt: He rather means to lodge you in the field, Like one that comes here to besiege his court, Than seek a dispensation for his oath, To let you enter his unpeopled house. Here comes Navarre. [Enter FERDINAND, LONGAVILLE, DUMAIN, BIRON, and Attendants] FERDINAND Fair princess, welcome to the court of Navarre. PRINCESS 'Fair' I give you back again; and 'welcome' I have not yet: the roof of this court is too high to be yours; and welcome to the wide fields too base to be mine. FERDINAND You shall be welcome, madam, to my court. PRINCESS I will be welcome, then: conduct me thither. FERDINAND Hear me, dear lady; I have sworn an oath. PRINCESS Our Lady help my lord! he'll be forsworn. FERDINAND Not for the world, fair madam, by my will. PRINCESS Why, will shall break it; will and nothing else. FERDINAND Your ladyship is ignorant what it is. PRINCESS Were my lord so, his ignorance were wise, Where now his knowledge must prove ignorance. I hear your grace hath sworn out house-keeping: Tis deadly sin to keep that oath, my lord, And sin to break it. But pardon me. I am too sudden-bold: To teach a teacher ill beseemeth me. Vouchsafe to read the purpose of my coming, And suddenly resolve me in my suit. FERDINAND Madam, I will, if suddenly I may. PRINCESS You will the sooner, that I were away; For you'll prove perjured if you make me stay. BIRON Did not I dance with you in Brabant once? ROSALINE Did not I dance with you in Brabant once? BIRON I know you did. ROSALINE How needless was it then to ask the question! BIRON You must not be so quick. ROSALINE 'Tis 'long of you that spur me with such questions. BIRON Your wit's too hot, it speeds too fast, 'twill tire. ROSALINE Not till it leave the rider in the mire. BIRON What time o' day? ROSALINE The hour that fools should ask. BIRON Now fair befall your mask! ROSALINE Fair fall the face it covers! BIRON And send you many lovers! ROSALINE Amen, so you be none. BIRON Nay, then will I be gone. FERDINAND Madam, your father here doth intimate The payment of a hundred thousand crowns; Being but the one half of an entire sum Disbursed by my father in his wars. But say that he or we, as neither have, Received that sum, yet there remains unpaid A hundred thousand more; in surety of the which, One part of Aquitaine is bound to us, Although not valued to the money's worth. If then the king your father will restore But that one half which is unsatisfied, We will give up our right in Aquitaine, And hold fair friendship with his majesty. But that, it seems, he little purposeth, For here he doth demand to have repaid A hundred thousand crowns; and not demands, On payment of a hundred thousand crowns, To have his title live in Aquitaine; Which we much rather had depart withal And have the money by our father lent Than Aquitaine so gelded as it is. Dear Princess, were not his requests so far From reason's yielding, your fair self should make A yielding 'gainst some reason in my breast And go well satisfied to France again. PRINCESS You do the king my father too much wrong And wrong the reputation of your name, In so unseeming to confess receipt Of that which hath so faithfully been paid. FERDINAND I do protest I never heard of it; And if you prove it, I'll repay it back Or yield up Aquitaine. PRINCESS We arrest your word. Boyet, you can produce acquittances For such a sum from special officers Of Charles his father. FERDINAND Satisfy me so. BOYET So please your grace, the packet is not come Where that and other specialties are bound: To-morrow you shall have a sight of them. FERDINAND It shall suffice me: at which interview All liberal reason I will yield unto. Meantime receive such welcome at my hand As honour without breach of honour may Make tender of to thy true worthiness: You may not come, fair princess, in my gates; But here without you shall be so received As you shall deem yourself lodged in my heart, Though so denied fair harbour in my house. Your own good thoughts excuse me, and farewell: To-morrow shall we visit you again. PRINCESS Sweet health and fair desires consort your grace! FERDINAND Thy own wish wish I thee in every place! [Exit] BIRON Lady, I will commend you to mine own heart. ROSALINE Pray you, do my commendations; I would be glad to see it. BIRON I would you heard it groan. ROSALINE Is the fool sick? BIRON Sick at the heart. ROSALINE Alack, let it blood. BIRON Would that do it good? ROSALINE My physic says 'ay.' BIRON Will you prick't with your eye? ROSALINE No point, with my knife. BIRON Now, God save thy life! ROSALINE And yours from long living! BIRON I cannot stay thanksgiving. [Retiring] DUMAIN Sir, I pray you, a word: what lady is that same? BOYET The heir of Alencon, Katharine her name. DUMAIN A gallant lady. Monsieur, fare you well. [Exit] LONGAVILLE I beseech you a word: what is she in the white? BOYET A woman sometimes, an you saw her in the light. LONGAVILLE Perchance light in the light. I desire her name. BOYET She hath but one for herself; to desire that were a shame. LONGAVILLE Pray you, sir, whose daughter? BOYET Her mother's, I have heard. LONGAVILLE God's blessing on your beard! BOYET Good sir, be not offended. She is an heir of Falconbridge. LONGAVILLE Nay, my choler is ended. She is a most sweet lady. BOYET Not unlike, sir, that may be. [Exit LONGAVILLE] BIRON What's her name in the cap? BOYET Rosaline, by good hap. BIRON Is she wedded or no? BOYET To her will, sir, or so. BIRON You are welcome, sir: adieu. BOYET Farewell to me, sir, and welcome to you. [Exit BIRON] MARIA That last is Biron, the merry madcap lord: Not a word with him but a jest. BOYET And every jest but a word. PRINCESS It was well done of you to take him at his word. BOYET I was as willing to grapple as he was to board. MARIA Two hot sheeps, marry. BOYET And wherefore not ships? No sheep, sweet lamb, unless we feed on your lips. MARIA You sheep, and I pasture: shall that finish the jest? BOYET So you grant pasture for me. [Offering to kiss her] MARIA Not so, gentle beast: My lips are no common, though several they be. BOYET Belonging to whom? MARIA To my fortunes and me. PRINCESS Good wits will be jangling; but, gentles, agree: This civil war of wits were much better used On Navarre and his book-men; for here 'tis abused. BOYET If my observation, which very seldom lies, By the heart's still rhetoric disclosed with eyes, Deceive me not now, Navarre is infected. PRINCESS With what? BOYET With that which we lovers entitle affected. PRINCESS Your reason? BOYET Why, all his behaviors did make their retire To the court of his eye, peeping thorough desire: His heart, like an agate, with your print impress'd, Proud with his form, in his eye pride express'd: His tongue, all impatient to speak and not see, Did stumble with haste in his eyesight to be; All senses to that sense did make their repair, To feel only looking on fairest of fair: Methought all his senses were lock'd in his eye, As jewels in crystal for some prince to buy; Who, tendering their own worth from where they were glass'd, Did point you to buy them, along as you pass'd: His face's own margent did quote such amazes That all eyes saw his eyes enchanted with gazes. I'll give you Aquitaine and all that is his, An you give him for my sake but one loving kiss. PRINCESS Come to our pavilion: Boyet is disposed. BOYET But to speak that in words which his eye hath disclosed. I only have made a mouth of his eye, By adding a tongue which I know will not lie. ROSALINE Thou art an old love-monger and speakest skilfully. MARIA He is Cupid's grandfather and learns news of him. ROSALINE Then was Venus like her mother, for her father is but grim. BOYET Do you hear, my mad wenches? MARIA No. BOYET What then, do you see? ROSALINE Ay, our way to be gone. BOYET You are too hard for me. [Exeunt] LOVE'S LABOURS LOST ACT III SCENE I The same. [Enter DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO and MOTH] DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO Warble, child; make passionate my sense of hearing. MOTH Concolinel. [Singing] DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO Sweet air! Go, tenderness of years; take this key, give enlargement to the swain, bring him festinately hither: I must employ him in a letter to my love. MOTH Master, will you win your love with a French brawl? DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO How meanest thou? brawling in French? MOTH No, my complete master: but to jig off a tune at the tongue's end, canary to it with your feet, humour it with turning up your eyelids, sigh a note and sing a note, sometime through the throat, as if you swallowed love with singing love, sometime through the nose, as if you snuffed up love by smelling love; with your hat penthouse-like o'er the shop of your eyes; with your arms crossed on your thin-belly doublet like a rabbit on a spit; or your hands in your pocket like a man after the old painting; and keep not too long in one tune, but a snip and away. These are complements, these are humours; these betray nice wenches, that would be betrayed without these; and make them men of note--do you note me?--that most are affected to these. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO How hast thou purchased this experience? MOTH By my penny of observation. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO But O,--but O,-- MOTH 'The hobby-horse is forgot.' DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO Callest thou my love 'hobby-horse'? MOTH No, master; the hobby-horse is but a colt, and your love perhaps a hackney. But have you forgot your love? DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO Almost I had. MOTH Negligent student! learn her by heart. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO By heart and in heart, boy. MOTH And out of heart, master: all those three I will prove. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO What wilt thou prove? MOTH A man, if I live; and this, by, in, and without, upon the instant: by heart you love her, because your heart cannot come by her; in heart you love her, because your heart is in love with her; and out of heart you love her, being out of heart that you cannot enjoy her. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO I am all these three. MOTH And three times as much more, and yet nothing at all. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO Fetch hither the swain: he must carry me a letter. MOTH A message well sympathized; a horse to be ambassador for an ass. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO Ha, ha! what sayest thou? MOTH Marry, sir, you must send the ass upon the horse, for he is very slow-gaited. But I go. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO The way is but short: away! MOTH As swift as lead, sir. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO The meaning, pretty ingenious? Is not lead a metal heavy, dull, and slow? MOTH Minime, honest master; or rather, master, no. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO I say lead is slow. MOTH You are too swift, sir, to say so: Is that lead slow which is fired from a gun? DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO Sweet smoke of rhetoric! He reputes me a cannon; and the bullet, that's he: I shoot thee at the swain. MOTH Thump then and I flee. [Exit] DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO A most acute juvenal; voluble and free of grace! By thy favour, sweet welkin, I must sigh in thy face: Most rude melancholy, valour gives thee place. My herald is return'd. [Re-enter MOTH with COSTARD] MOTH A wonder, master! here's a costard broken in a shin. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO Some enigma, some riddle: come, thy l'envoy; begin. COSTARD No enigma, no riddle, no l'envoy; no salve in the mail, sir: O, sir, plantain, a plain plantain! no l'envoy, no l'envoy; no salve, sir, but a plantain! DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO By virtue, thou enforcest laughter; thy silly thought my spleen; the heaving of my lungs provokes me to ridiculous smiling. O, pardon me, my stars! Doth the inconsiderate take salve for l'envoy, and the word l'envoy for a salve? MOTH Do the wise think them other? is not l'envoy a salve? DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO No, page: it is an epilogue or discourse, to make plain Some obscure precedence that hath tofore been sain. I will example it: The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee, Were still at odds, being but three. There's the moral. Now the l'envoy. MOTH I will add the l'envoy. Say the moral again. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee, Were still at odds, being but three. MOTH Until the goose came out of door, And stay'd the odds by adding four. Now will I begin your moral, and do you follow with my l'envoy. The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee, Were still at odds, being but three. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO Until the goose came out of door, Staying the odds by adding four. MOTH A good l'envoy, ending in the goose: would you desire more? COSTARD The boy hath sold him a bargain, a goose, that's flat. Sir, your pennyworth is good, an your goose be fat. To sell a bargain well is as cunning as fast and loose: Let me see; a fat l'envoy; ay, that's a fat goose. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO Come hither, come hither. How did this argument begin? MOTH By saying that a costard was broken in a shin. Then call'd you for the l'envoy. COSTARD True, and I for a plantain: thus came your argument in; Then the boy's fat l'envoy, the goose that you bought; And he ended the market. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO But tell me; how was there a costard broken in a shin? MOTH I will tell you sensibly. COSTARD Thou hast no feeling of it, Moth: I will speak that l'envoy: I Costard, running out, that was safely within, Fell over the threshold and broke my shin. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO We will talk no more of this matter. COSTARD Till there be more matter in the shin. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO Sirrah Costard, I will enfranchise thee. COSTARD O, marry me to one Frances: I smell some l'envoy, some goose, in this. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO By my sweet soul, I mean setting thee at liberty, enfreedoming thy person; thou wert immured, restrained, captivated, bound. COSTARD True, true; and now you will be my purgation and let me loose. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO I give thee thy liberty, set thee from durance; and, in lieu thereof, impose on thee nothing but this: bear this significant [Giving a letter] to the country maid Jaquenetta: there is remuneration; for the best ward of mine honour is rewarding my dependents. Moth, follow. [Exit] MOTH Like the sequel, I. Signior Costard, adieu. COSTARD My sweet ounce of man's flesh! my incony Jew! [Exit MOTH] Now will I look to his remuneration. Remuneration! O, that's the Latin word for three farthings: three farthings--remuneration.--'What's the price of this inkle?'--'One penny.'--'No, I'll give you a remuneration:' why, it carries it. Remuneration! why, it is a fairer name than French crown. I will never buy and sell out of this word. [Enter BIRON] BIRON O, my good knave Costard! exceedingly well met. COSTARD Pray you, sir, how much carnation ribbon may a man buy for a remuneration? BIRON What is a remuneration? COSTARD Marry, sir, halfpenny farthing. BIRON Why, then, three-farthing worth of silk. COSTARD I thank your worship: God be wi' you! BIRON Stay, slave; I must employ thee: As thou wilt win my favour, good my knave, Do one thing for me that I shall entreat. COSTARD When would you have it done, sir? BIRON This afternoon. COSTARD Well, I will do it, sir: fare you well. BIRON Thou knowest not what it is. COSTARD I shall know, sir, when I have done it. BIRON Why, villain, thou must know first. COSTARD I will come to your worship to-morrow morning. BIRON It must be done this afternoon. Hark, slave, it is but this: The princess comes to hunt here in the park, And in her train there is a gentle lady; When tongues speak sweetly, then they name her name, And Rosaline they call her: ask for her; And to her white hand see thou do commend This seal'd-up counsel. There's thy guerdon; go. [Giving him a shilling] COSTARD Gardon, O sweet gardon! better than remuneration, a'leven-pence farthing better: most sweet gardon! I will do it sir, in print. Gardon! Remuneration! [Exit] BIRON And I, forsooth, in love! I, that have been love's whip; A very beadle to a humorous sigh; A critic, nay, a night-watch constable; A domineering pedant o'er the boy; Than whom no mortal so magnificent! This whimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy; This senior-junior, giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid; Regent of love-rhymes, lord of folded arms, The anointed sovereign of sighs and groans, Liege of all loiterers and malcontents, Dread prince of plackets, king of codpieces, Sole imperator and great general Of trotting 'paritors:--O my little heart:-- And I to be a corporal of his field, And wear his colours like a tumbler's hoop! What, I! I love! I sue! I seek a wife! A woman, that is like a German clock, Still a-repairing, ever out of frame, And never going aright, being a watch, But being watch'd that it may still go right! Nay, to be perjured, which is worst of all; And, among three, to love the worst of all; A wightly wanton with a velvet brow, With two pitch-balls stuck in her face for eyes; Ay, and by heaven, one that will do the deed Though Argus were her eunuch and her guard: And I to sigh for her! to watch for her! To pray for her! Go to; it is a plague That Cupid will impose for my neglect Of his almighty dreadful little might. Well, I will love, write, sigh, pray, sue and groan: Some men must love my lady and some Joan. [Exit] LOVE'S LABOURS LOST ACT IV SCENE I The same. [Enter the PRINCESS, and her train, a Forester, BOYET, ROSALINE, MARIA, and KATHARINE] PRINCESS Was that the king, that spurred his horse so hard Against the steep uprising of the hill? BOYET I know not; but I think it was not he. PRINCESS Whoe'er a' was, a' show'd a mounting mind. Well, lords, to-day we shall have our dispatch: On Saturday we will return to France. Then, forester, my friend, where is the bush That we must stand and play the murderer in? Forester Hereby, upon the edge of yonder coppice; A stand where you may make the fairest shoot. PRINCESS I thank my beauty, I am fair that shoot, And thereupon thou speak'st the fairest shoot. Forester Pardon me, madam, for I meant not so. PRINCESS What, what? first praise me and again say no? O short-lived pride! Not fair? alack for woe! Forester Yes, madam, fair. PRINCESS Nay, never paint me now: Where fair is not, praise cannot mend the brow. Here, good my glass, take this for telling true: Fair payment for foul words is more than due. Forester Nothing but fair is that which you inherit. PRINCESS See see, my beauty will be saved by merit! O heresy in fair, fit for these days! A giving hand, though foul, shall have fair praise. But come, the bow: now mercy goes to kill, And shooting well is then accounted ill. Thus will I save my credit in the shoot: Not wounding, pity would not let me do't; If wounding, then it was to show my skill, That more for praise than purpose meant to kill. And out of question so it is sometimes, Glory grows guilty of detested crimes, When, for fame's sake, for praise, an outward part, We bend to that the working of the heart; As I for praise alone now seek to spill The poor deer's blood, that my heart means no ill. BOYET Do not curst wives hold that self-sovereignty Only for praise sake, when they strive to be Lords o'er their lords? PRINCESS Only for praise: and praise we may afford To any lady that subdues a lord. BOYET Here comes a member of the commonwealth. [Enter COSTARD] COSTARD God dig-you-den all! Pray you, which is the head lady? PRINCESS Thou shalt know her, fellow, by the rest that have no heads. COSTARD Which is the greatest lady, the highest? PRINCESS The thickest and the tallest. COSTARD The thickest and the tallest! it is so; truth is truth. An your waist, mistress, were as slender as my wit, One o' these maids' girdles for your waist should be fit. Are not you the chief woman? you are the thickest here. PRINCESS What's your will, sir? what's your will? COSTARD I have a letter from Monsieur Biron to one Lady Rosaline. PRINCESS O, thy letter, thy letter! he's a good friend of mine: Stand aside, good bearer. Boyet, you can carve; Break up this capon. BOYET I am bound to serve. This letter is mistook, it importeth none here; It is writ to Jaquenetta. PRINCESS We will read it, I swear. Break the neck of the wax, and every one give ear. [Reads] BOYET 'By heaven, that thou art fair, is most infallible; true, that thou art beauteous; truth itself, that thou art lovely. More fairer than fair, beautiful than beauteous, truer than truth itself, have commiseration on thy heroical vassal! The magnanimous and most illustrate king Cophetua set eye upon the pernicious and indubitate beggar Zenelophon; and he it was that might rightly say, Veni, vidi, vici; which to annothanize in the vulgar,--O base and obscure vulgar!--videlicet, He came, saw, and overcame: he came, one; saw two; overcame, three. Who came? the king: why did he come? to see: why did he see? to overcome: to whom came he? to the beggar: what saw he? the beggar: who overcame he? the beggar. The conclusion is victory: on whose side? the king's. The captive is enriched: on whose side? the beggar's. The catastrophe is a nuptial: on whose side? the king's: no, on both in one, or one in both. I am the king; for so stands the comparison: thou the beggar; for so witnesseth thy lowliness. Shall I command thy love? I may: shall I enforce thy love? I could: shall I entreat thy love? I will. What shalt thou exchange for rags? robes; for tittles? titles; for thyself? me. Thus, expecting thy reply, I profane my lips on thy foot, my eyes on thy picture. and my heart on thy every part. Thine, in the dearest design of industry, DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO.' Thus dost thou hear the Nemean lion roar 'Gainst thee, thou lamb, that standest as his prey. Submissive fall his princely feet before, And he from forage will incline to play: But if thou strive, poor soul, what art thou then? Food for his rage, repasture for his den. PRINCESS What plume of feathers is he that indited this letter? What vane? what weathercock? did you ever hear better? BOYET I am much deceived but I remember the style. PRINCESS Else your memory is bad, going o'er it erewhile. BOYET This Armado is a Spaniard, that keeps here in court; A phantasime, a Monarcho, and one that makes sport To the prince and his bookmates. PRINCESS Thou fellow, a word: Who gave thee this letter? COSTARD I told you; my lord. PRINCESS To whom shouldst thou give it? COSTARD From my lord to my lady. PRINCESS From which lord to which lady? COSTARD From my lord Biron, a good master of mine, To a lady of France that he call'd Rosaline. PRINCESS Thou hast mistaken his letter. Come, lords, away. [To ROSALINE] Here, sweet, put up this: 'twill be thine another day. [Exeunt PRINCESS and train] BOYET Who is the suitor? who is the suitor? ROSALINE Shall I teach you to know? BOYET Ay, my continent of beauty. ROSALINE Why, she that bears the bow. Finely put off! BOYET My lady goes to kill horns; but, if thou marry, Hang me by the neck, if horns that year miscarry. Finely put on! ROSALINE Well, then, I am the shooter. BOYET And who is your deer? ROSALINE If we choose by the horns, yourself come not near. Finely put on, indeed! MARIA You still wrangle with her, Boyet, and she strikes at the brow. BOYET But she herself is hit lower: have I hit her now? ROSALINE Shall I come upon thee with an old saying, that was a man when King Pepin of France was a little boy, as touching the hit it? BOYET So I may answer thee with one as old, that was a woman when Queen Guinover of Britain was a little wench, as touching the hit it. ROSALINE Thou canst not hit it, hit it, hit it, Thou canst not hit it, my good man. BOYET An I cannot, cannot, cannot, An I cannot, another can. [Exeunt ROSALINE and KATHARINE] COSTARD By my troth, most pleasant: how both did fit it! MARIA A mark marvellous well shot, for they both did hit it. BOYET A mark! O, mark but that mark! A mark, says my lady! Let the mark have a prick in't, to mete at, if it may be. MARIA Wide o' the bow hand! i' faith, your hand is out. COSTARD Indeed, a' must shoot nearer, or he'll ne'er hit the clout. BOYET An if my hand be out, then belike your hand is in. COSTARD Then will she get the upshoot by cleaving the pin. MARIA Come, come, you talk greasily; your lips grow foul. COSTARD She's too hard for you at pricks, sir: challenge her to bowl. BOYET I fear too much rubbing. Good night, my good owl. [Exeunt BOYET and MARIA] COSTARD By my soul, a swain! a most simple clown! Lord, Lord, how the ladies and I have put him down! O' my troth, most sweet jests! most incony vulgar wit! When it comes so smoothly off, so obscenely, as it were, so fit. Armado o' th' one side,--O, a most dainty man! To see him walk before a lady and to bear her fan! To see him kiss his hand! and how most sweetly a' will swear! And his page o' t' other side, that handful of wit! Ah, heavens, it is a most pathetical nit! Sola, sola! [Shout within] [Exit COSTARD, running] LOVE'S LABOURS LOST ACT IV SCENE II The same. [Enter HOLOFERNES, SIR NATHANIEL, and DULL] SIR NATHANIEL Very reverend sport, truly; and done in the testimony of a good conscience. HOLOFERNES The deer was, as you know, sanguis, in blood; ripe as the pomewater, who now hangeth like a jewel in the ear of caelo, the sky, the welkin, the heaven; and anon falleth like a crab on the face of terra, the soil, the land, the earth. SIR NATHANIEL Truly, Master Holofernes, the epithets are sweetly varied, like a scholar at the least: but, sir, I assure ye, it was a buck of the first head. HOLOFERNES Sir Nathaniel, haud credo. DULL 'Twas not a haud credo; 'twas a pricket. HOLOFERNES Most barbarous intimation! yet a kind of insinuation, as it were, in via, in way, of explication; facere, as it were, replication, or rather, ostentare, to show, as it were, his inclination, after his undressed, unpolished, uneducated, unpruned, untrained, or rather, unlettered, or ratherest, unconfirmed fashion, to insert again my haud credo for a deer. DULL I said the deer was not a haud credo; twas a pricket. HOLOFERNES Twice-sod simplicity, his coctus! O thou monster Ignorance, how deformed dost thou look! SIR NATHANIEL Sir, he hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in a book; he hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink: his intellect is not replenished; he is only an animal, only sensible in the duller parts: And such barren plants are set before us, that we thankful should be, Which we of taste and feeling are, for those parts that do fructify in us more than he. For as it would ill become me to be vain, indiscreet, or a fool, So were there a patch set on learning, to see him in a school: But omne bene, say I; being of an old father's mind, Many can brook the weather that love not the wind. DULL You two are book-men: can you tell me by your wit What was a month old at Cain's birth, that's not five weeks old as yet? HOLOFERNES Dictynna, goodman Dull; Dictynna, goodman Dull. DULL What is Dictynna? SIR NATHANIEL A title to Phoebe, to Luna, to the moon. HOLOFERNES The moon was a month old when Adam was no more, And raught not to five weeks when he came to five-score. The allusion holds in the exchange. DULL 'Tis true indeed; the collusion holds in the exchange. HOLOFERNES God comfort thy capacity! I say, the allusion holds in the exchange. DULL And I say, the pollusion holds in the exchange; for the moon is never but a month old: and I say beside that, 'twas a pricket that the princess killed. HOLOFERNES Sir Nathaniel, will you hear an extemporal epitaph on the death of the deer? And, to humour the ignorant, call I the deer the princess killed a pricket. SIR NATHANIEL Perge, good Master Holofernes, perge; so it shall please you to abrogate scurrility. HOLOFERNES I will something affect the letter, for it argues facility. The preyful princess pierced and prick'd a pretty pleasing pricket; Some say a sore; but not a sore, till now made sore with shooting. The dogs did yell: put L to sore, then sorel jumps from thicket; Or pricket sore, or else sorel; the people fall a-hooting. If sore be sore, then L to sore makes fifty sores one sorel. Of one sore I an hundred make by adding but one more L. SIR NATHANIEL A rare talent! DULL [Aside] If a talent be a claw, look how he claws him with a talent. HOLOFERNES This is a gift that I have, simple, simple; a foolish extravagant spirit, full of forms, figures, shapes, objects, ideas, apprehensions, motions, revolutions: these are begot in the ventricle of memory, nourished in the womb of pia mater, and delivered upon the mellowing of occasion. But the gift is good in those in whom it is acute, and I am thankful for it. SIR NATHANIEL Sir, I praise the Lord for you; and so may my parishioners; for their sons are well tutored by you, and their daughters profit very greatly under you: you are a good member of the commonwealth. HOLOFERNES Mehercle, if their sons be ingenuous, they shall want no instruction; if their daughters be capable, I will put it to them: but vir sapit qui pauca loquitur; a soul feminine saluteth us. [Enter JAQUENETTA and COSTARD] JAQUENETTA God give you good morrow, master Parson. HOLOFERNES Master Parson, quasi pers-on. An if one should be pierced, which is the one? COSTARD Marry, master schoolmaster, he that is likest to a hogshead. HOLOFERNES Piercing a hogshead! a good lustre of conceit in a tuft of earth; fire enough for a flint, pearl enough for a swine: 'tis pretty; it is well. JAQUENETTA Good master Parson, be so good as read me this letter: it was given me by Costard, and sent me from Don Armado: I beseech you, read it. HOLOFERNES Fauste, precor gelida quando pecus omne sub umbra Ruminat,--and so forth. Ah, good old Mantuan! I may speak of thee as the traveller doth of Venice; Venetia, Venetia, Chi non ti vede non ti pretia. Old Mantuan, old Mantuan! who understandeth thee not, loves thee not. Ut, re, sol, la, mi, fa. Under pardon, sir, what are the contents? or rather, as Horace says in his--What, my soul, verses? SIR NATHANIEL Ay, sir, and very learned. HOLOFERNES Let me hear a staff, a stanze, a verse; lege, domine. SIR NATHANIEL [Reads] If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to love? Ah, never faith could hold, if not to beauty vow'd! Though to myself forsworn, to thee I'll faithful prove: Those thoughts to me were oaks, to thee like osiers bow'd. Study his bias leaves and makes his book thine eyes, Where all those pleasures live that art would comprehend: If knowledge be the mark, to know thee shall suffice; Well learned is that tongue that well can thee commend, All ignorant that soul that sees thee without wonder; Which is to me some praise that I thy parts admire: Thy eye Jove's lightning bears, thy voice his dreadful thunder, Which not to anger bent, is music and sweet fire. Celestial as thou art, O, pardon, love, this wrong, That sings heaven's praise with such an earthly tongue. HOLOFERNES You find not the apostraphas, and so miss the accent: let me supervise the canzonet. Here are only numbers ratified; but, for the elegancy, facility, and golden cadence of poesy, caret. Ovidius Naso was the man: and why, indeed, Naso, but for smelling out the odouriferous flowers of fancy, the jerks of invention? Imitari is nothing: so doth the hound his master, the ape his keeper, the tired horse his rider. But, damosella virgin, was this directed to you? JAQUENETTA Ay, sir, from one Monsieur Biron, one of the strange queen's lords. HOLOFERNES I will overglance the superscript: 'To the snow-white hand of the most beauteous Lady Rosaline.' I will look again on the intellect of the letter, for the nomination of the party writing to the person written unto: 'Your ladyship's in all desired employment, BIRON.' Sir Nathaniel, this Biron is one of the votaries with the king; and here he hath framed a letter to a sequent of the stranger queen's, which accidentally, or by the way of progression, hath miscarried. Trip and go, my sweet; deliver this paper into the royal hand of the king: it may concern much. Stay not thy compliment; I forgive thy duty; adieu. JAQUENETTA Good Costard, go with me. Sir, God save your life! COSTARD Have with thee, my girl. [Exeunt COSTARD and JAQUENETTA] SIR NATHANIEL Sir, you have done this in the fear of God, very religiously; and, as a certain father saith,-- HOLOFERNES Sir tell me not of the father; I do fear colourable colours. But to return to the verses: did they please you, Sir Nathaniel? SIR NATHANIEL Marvellous well for the pen. HOLOFERNES I do dine to-day at the father's of a certain pupil of mine; where, if, before repast, it shall please you to gratify the table with a grace, I will, on my privilege I have with the parents of the foresaid child or pupil, undertake your ben venuto; where I will prove those verses to be very unlearned, neither savouring of poetry, wit, nor invention: I beseech your society. SIR NATHANIEL And thank you too; for society, saith the text, is the happiness of life. HOLOFERNES And, certes, the text most infallibly concludes it. [To DULL] Sir, I do invite you too; you shall not say me nay: pauca verba. Away! the gentles are at their game, and we will to our recreation. [Exeunt] LOVE'S LABOURS LOST ACT IV SCENE III The same. [Enter BIRON, with a paper] BIRON The king he is hunting the deer; I am coursing myself: they have pitched a toil; I am toiling in a pitch,--pitch that defiles: defile! a foul word. Well, set thee down, sorrow! for so they say the fool said, and so say I, and I the fool: well proved, wit! By the Lord, this love is as mad as Ajax: it kills sheep; it kills me, I a sheep: well proved again o' my side! I will not love: if I do, hang me; i' faith, I will not. O, but her eye,--by this light, but for her eye, I would not love her; yes, for her two eyes. Well, I do nothing in the world but lie, and lie in my throat. By heaven, I do love: and it hath taught me to rhyme and to be melancholy; and here is part of my rhyme, and here my melancholy. Well, she hath one o' my sonnets already: the clown bore it, the fool sent it, and the lady hath it: sweet clown, sweeter fool, sweetest lady! By the world, I would not care a pin, if the other three were in. Here comes one with a paper: God give him grace to groan! [Stands aside] [Enter FERDINAND, with a paper] FERDINAND Ay me! BIRON [Aside] Shot, by heaven! Proceed, sweet Cupid: thou hast thumped him with thy bird-bolt under the left pap. In faith, secrets! FERDINAND [Reads] So sweet a kiss the golden sun gives not To those fresh morning drops upon the rose, As thy eye-beams, when their fresh rays have smote The night of dew that on my cheeks down flows: Nor shines the silver moon one half so bright Through the transparent bosom of the deep, As doth thy face through tears of mine give light; Thou shinest in every tear that I do weep: No drop but as a coach doth carry thee; So ridest thou triumphing in my woe. Do but behold the tears that swell in me, And they thy glory through my grief will show: But do not love thyself; then thou wilt keep My tears for glasses, and still make me weep. O queen of queens! how far dost thou excel, No thought can think, nor tongue of mortal tell. How shall she know my griefs? I'll drop the paper: Sweet leaves, shade folly. Who is he comes here? [Steps aside] What, Longaville! and reading! listen, ear. BIRON Now, in thy likeness, one more fool appear! [Enter LONGAVILLE, with a paper] LONGAVILLE Ay me, I am forsworn! BIRON Why, he comes in like a perjure, wearing papers. FERDINAND In love, I hope: sweet fellowship in shame! BIRON One drunkard loves another of the name. LONGAVILLE Am I the first that have been perjured so? BIRON I could put thee in comfort. Not by two that I know: Thou makest the triumviry, the corner-cap of society, The shape of Love's Tyburn that hangs up simplicity. LONGAVILLE I fear these stubborn lines lack power to move: O sweet Maria, empress of my love! These numbers will I tear, and write in prose. BIRON O, rhymes are guards on wanton Cupid's hose: Disfigure not his slop. LONGAVILLE This same shall go. [Reads] Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye, 'Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument, Persuade my heart to this false perjury? Vows for thee broke deserve not punishment. A woman I forswore; but I will prove, Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee: My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love; Thy grace being gain'd cures all disgrace in me. Vows are but breath, and breath a vapour is: Then thou, fair sun, which on my earth dost shine, Exhalest this vapour-vow; in thee it is: If broken then, it is no fault of mine: If by me broke, what fool is not so wise To lose an oath to win a paradise? BIRON This is the liver-vein, which makes flesh a deity, A green goose a goddess: pure, pure idolatry. God amend us, God amend! we are much out o' the way. LONGAVILLE By whom shall I send this?--Company! stay. [Steps aside] BIRON All hid, all hid; an old infant play. Like a demigod here sit I in the sky. And wretched fools' secrets heedfully o'ereye. More sacks to the mill! O heavens, I have my wish! [Enter DUMAIN, with a paper] Dumain transform'd! four woodcocks in a dish! DUMAIN O most divine Kate! BIRON O most profane coxcomb! DUMAIN By heaven, the wonder in a mortal eye! BIRON By earth, she is not, corporal, there you lie. DUMAIN Her amber hair for foul hath amber quoted. BIRON An amber-colour'd raven was well noted. DUMAIN As upright as the cedar. BIRON Stoop, I say; Her shoulder is with child. DUMAIN As fair as day. BIRON Ay, as some days; but then no sun must shine. DUMAIN O that I had my wish! LONGAVILLE And I had mine! FERDINAND And I mine too, good Lord! BIRON Amen, so I had mine: is not that a good word? DUMAIN I would forget her; but a fever she Reigns in my blood and will remember'd be. BIRON A fever in your blood! why, then incision Would let her out in saucers: sweet misprision! DUMAIN Once more I'll read the ode that I have writ. BIRON Once more I'll mark how love can vary wit. DUMAIN [Reads] On a day--alack the day!-- Love, whose month is ever May, Spied a blossom passing fair Playing in the wanton air: Through the velvet leaves the wind, All unseen, can passage find; That the lover, sick to death, Wish himself the heaven's breath. Air, quoth he, thy cheeks may blow; Air, would I might triumph so! But, alack, my hand is sworn Ne'er to pluck thee from thy thorn; Vow, alack, for youth unmeet, Youth so apt to pluck a sweet! Do not call it sin in me, That I am forsworn for thee; Thou for whom Jove would swear Juno but an Ethiope were; And deny himself for Jove, Turning mortal for thy love. This will I send, and something else more plain, That shall express my true love's fasting pain. O, would the king, Biron, and Longaville, Were lovers too! Ill, to example ill, Would from my forehead wipe a perjured note; For none offend where all alike do dote. LONGAVILLE [Advancing] Dumain, thy love is far from charity. You may look pale, but I should blush, I know, To be o'erheard and taken napping so. FERDINAND [Advancing] Come, sir, you blush; as his your case is such; You chide at him, offending twice as much; You do not love Maria; Longaville Did never sonnet for her sake compile, Nor never lay his wreathed arms athwart His loving bosom to keep down his heart. I have been closely shrouded in this bush And mark'd you both and for you both did blush: I heard your guilty rhymes, observed your fashion, Saw sighs reek from you, noted well your passion: Ay me! says one; O Jove! the other cries; One, her hairs were gold, crystal the other's eyes: [To LONGAVILLE] You would for paradise break faith, and troth; [To DUMAIN] And Jove, for your love, would infringe an oath. What will Biron say when that he shall hear Faith so infringed, which such zeal did swear? How will he scorn! how will he spend his wit! How will he triumph, leap and laugh at it! For all the wealth that ever I did see, I would not have him know so much by me. BIRON Now step I forth to whip hypocrisy. [Advancing] Ah, good my liege, I pray thee, pardon me! Good heart, what grace hast thou, thus to reprove These worms for loving, that art most in love? Your eyes do make no coaches; in your tears There is no certain princess that appears; You'll not be perjured, 'tis a hateful thing; Tush, none but minstrels like of sonneting! But are you not ashamed? nay, are you not, All three of you, to be thus much o'ershot? You found his mote; the king your mote did see; But I a beam do find in each of three. O, what a scene of foolery have I seen, Of sighs, of groans, of sorrow and of teen! O me, with what strict patience have I sat, To see a king transformed to a gnat! To see great Hercules whipping a gig, And profound Solomon to tune a jig, And Nestor play at push-pin with the boys, And critic Timon laugh at idle toys! Where lies thy grief, O, tell me, good Dumain? And gentle Longaville, where lies thy pain? And where my liege's? all about the breast: A caudle, ho! FERDINAND Too bitter is thy jest. Are we betray'd thus to thy over-view? BIRON Not you to me, but I betray'd by you: I, that am honest; I, that hold it sin To break the vow I am engaged in; I am betray'd, by keeping company With men like men of inconstancy. When shall you see me write a thing in rhyme? Or groan for love? or spend a minute's time In pruning me? When shall you hear that I Will praise a hand, a foot, a face, an eye, A gait, a state, a brow, a breast, a waist, A leg, a limb? FERDINAND Soft! whither away so fast? A true man or a thief that gallops so? BIRON I post from love: good lover, let me go. [Enter JAQUENETTA and COSTARD] JAQUENETTA God bless the king! FERDINAND What present hast thou there? COSTARD Some certain treason. FERDINAND What makes treason here? COSTARD Nay, it makes nothing, sir. FERDINAND If it mar nothing neither, The treason and you go in peace away together. JAQUENETTA I beseech your grace, let this letter be read: Our parson misdoubts it; 'twas treason, he said. FERDINAND Biron, read it over. [Giving him the paper] Where hadst thou it? JAQUENETTA Of Costard. FERDINAND Where hadst thou it? COSTARD Of Dun Adramadio, Dun Adramadio. [BIRON tears the letter] FERDINAND How now! what is in you? why dost thou tear it? BIRON A toy, my liege, a toy: your grace needs not fear it. LONGAVILLE It did move him to passion, and therefore let's hear it. DUMAIN It is Biron's writing, and here is his name. [Gathering up the pieces] BIRON [To COSTARD] Ah, you whoreson loggerhead! you were born to do me shame. Guilty, my lord, guilty! I confess, I confess. FERDINAND What? BIRON That you three fools lack'd me fool to make up the mess: He, he, and you, and you, my liege, and I, Are pick-purses in love, and we deserve to die. O, dismiss this audience, and I shall tell you more. DUMAIN Now the number is even. BIRON True, true; we are four. Will these turtles be gone? FERDINAND Hence, sirs; away! COSTARD Walk aside the true folk, and let the traitors stay. [Exeunt COSTARD and JAQUENETTA] BIRON Sweet lords, sweet lovers, O, let us embrace! As true we are as flesh and blood can be: The sea will ebb and flow, heaven show his face; Young blood doth not obey an old decree: We cannot cross the cause why we were born; Therefore of all hands must we be forsworn. FERDINAND What, did these rent lines show some love of thine? BIRON Did they, quoth you? Who sees the heavenly Rosaline, That, like a rude and savage man of Inde, At the first opening of the gorgeous east, Bows not his vassal head and strucken blind Kisses the base ground with obedient breast? What peremptory eagle-sighted eye Dares look upon the heaven of her brow, That is not blinded by her majesty? FERDINAND What zeal, what fury hath inspired thee now? My love, her mistress, is a gracious moon; She an attending star, scarce seen a light. BIRON My eyes are then no eyes, nor I Biron: O, but for my love, day would turn to night! Of all complexions the cull'd sovereignty Do meet, as at a fair, in her fair cheek, Where several worthies make one dignity, Where nothing wants that want itself doth seek. Lend me the flourish of all gentle tongues,-- Fie, painted rhetoric! O, she needs it not: To things of sale a seller's praise belongs, She passes praise; then praise too short doth blot. A wither'd hermit, five-score winters worn, Might shake off fifty, looking in her eye: Beauty doth varnish age, as if new-born, And gives the crutch the cradle's infancy: O, 'tis the sun that maketh all things shine. FERDINAND By heaven, thy love is black as ebony. BIRON Is ebony like her? O wood divine! A wife of such wood were felicity. O, who can give an oath? where is a book? That I may swear beauty doth beauty lack, If that she learn not of her eye to look: No face is fair that is not full so black. FERDINAND O paradox! Black is the badge of hell, The hue of dungeons and the suit of night; And beauty's crest becomes the heavens well. BIRON Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of light. O, if in black my lady's brows be deck'd, It mourns that painting and usurping hair Should ravish doters with a false aspect; And therefore is she born to make black fair. Her favour turns the fashion of the days, For native blood is counted painting now; And therefore red, that would avoid dispraise, Paints itself black, to imitate her brow. DUMAIN To look like her are chimney-sweepers black. LONGAVILLE And since her time are colliers counted bright. FERDINAND And Ethiopes of their sweet complexion crack. DUMAIN Dark needs no candles now, for dark is light. BIRON Your mistresses dare never come in rain, For fear their colours should be wash'd away. FERDINAND 'Twere good, yours did; for, sir, to tell you plain, I'll find a fairer face not wash'd to-day. BIRON I'll prove her fair, or talk till doomsday here. FERDINAND No devil will fright thee then so much as she. DUMAIN I never knew man hold vile stuff so dear. LONGAVILLE Look, here's thy love: my foot and her face see. BIRON O, if the streets were paved with thine eyes, Her feet were much too dainty for such tread! DUMAIN O, vile! then, as she goes, what upward lies The street should see as she walk'd overhead. FERDINAND But what of this? are we not all in love? BIRON Nothing so sure; and thereby all forsworn. FERDINAND Then leave this chat; and, good Biron, now prove Our loving lawful, and our faith not torn. DUMAIN Ay, marry, there; some flattery for this evil. LONGAVILLE O, some authority how to proceed; Some tricks, some quillets, how to cheat the devil. DUMAIN Some salve for perjury. BIRON 'Tis more than need. Have at you, then, affection's men at arms. Consider what you first did swear unto, To fast, to study, and to see no woman; Flat treason 'gainst the kingly state of youth. Say, can you fast? your stomachs are too young; And abstinence engenders maladies. And where that you have vow'd to study, lords, In that each of you have forsworn his book, Can you still dream and pore and thereon look? For when would you, my lord, or you, or you, Have found the ground of study's excellence Without the beauty of a woman's face? [From women's eyes this doctrine I derive; They are the ground, the books, the academes From whence doth spring the true Promethean fire] Why, universal plodding poisons up The nimble spirits in the arteries, As motion and long-during action tires The sinewy vigour of the traveller. Now, for not looking on a woman's face, You have in that forsworn the use of eyes And study too, the causer of your vow; For where is any author in the world Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye? Learning is but an adjunct to ourself And where we are our learning likewise is: Then when ourselves we see in ladies' eyes, Do we not likewise see our learning there? O, we have made a vow to study, lords, And in that vow we have forsworn our books. For when would you, my liege, or you, or you, In leaden contemplation have found out Such fiery numbers as the prompting eyes Of beauty's tutors have enrich'd you with? Other slow arts entirely keep the brain; And therefore, finding barren practisers, Scarce show a harvest of their heavy toil: But love, first learned in a lady's eyes, Lives not alone immured in the brain; But, with the motion of all elements, Courses as swift as thought in every power, And gives to every power a double power, Above their functions and their offices. It adds a precious seeing to the eye; A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind; A lover's ear will hear the lowest sound, When the suspicious head of theft is stopp'd: Love's feeling is more soft and sensible Than are the tender horns of cockl'd snails; Love's tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in taste: For valour, is not Love a Hercules, Still climbing trees in the Hesperides? Subtle as Sphinx; as sweet and musical As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair: And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony. Never durst poet touch a pen to write Until his ink were temper'd with Love's sighs; O, then his lines would ravish savage ears And plant in tyrants mild humility. From women's eyes this doctrine I derive: They sparkle still the right Promethean fire; They are the books, the arts, the academes, That show, contain and nourish all the world: Else none at all in ought proves excellent. Then fools you were these women to forswear, Or keeping what is sworn, you will prove fools. For wisdom's sake, a word that all men love, Or for love's sake, a word that loves all men, Or for men's sake, the authors of these women, Or women's sake, by whom we men are men, Let us once lose our oaths to find ourselves, Or else we lose ourselves to keep our oaths. It is religion to be thus forsworn, For charity itself fulfills the law, And who can sever love from charity? FERDINAND Saint Cupid, then! and, soldiers, to the field! BIRON Advance your standards, and upon them, lords; Pell-mell, down with them! but be first advised, In conflict that you get the sun of them. LONGAVILLE Now to plain-dealing; lay these glozes by: Shall we resolve to woo these girls of France? FERDINAND And win them too: therefore let us devise Some entertainment for them in their tents. BIRON First, from the park let us conduct them thither; Then homeward every man attach the hand Of his fair mistress: in the afternoon We will with some strange pastime solace them, Such as the shortness of the time can shape; For revels, dances, masks and merry hours Forerun fair Love, strewing her way with flowers. FERDINAND Away, away! no time shall be omitted That will betime, and may by us be fitted. BIRON Allons! allons! Sow'd cockle reap'd no corn; And justice always whirls in equal measure: Light wenches may prove plagues to men forsworn; If so, our copper buys no better treasure. [Exeunt] LOVE'S LABOURS LOST ACT V SCENE I The same. [Enter HOLOFERNES, SIR NATHANIEL, and DULL] HOLOFERNES Satis quod sufficit. SIR NATHANIEL I praise God for you, sir: your reasons at dinner have been sharp and sententious; pleasant without scurrility, witty without affection, audacious without impudency, learned without opinion, and strange with- out heresy. I did converse this quondam day with a companion of the king's, who is intituled, nomi- nated, or called, Don Adriano de Armado. HOLOFERNES Novi hominem tanquam te: his humour is lofty, his discourse peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye ambitious, his gait majestical, and his general behavior vain, ridiculous, and thrasonical. He is too picked, too spruce, too affected, too odd, as it were, too peregrinate, as I may call it. SIR NATHANIEL A most singular and choice epithet. [Draws out his table-book] HOLOFERNES He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument. I abhor such fanatical phantasimes, such insociable and point-devise companions; such rackers of orthography, as to speak dout, fine, when he should say doubt; det, when he should pronounce debt,--d, e, b, t, not d, e, t: he clepeth a calf, cauf; half, hauf; neighbour vocatur nebor; neigh abbreviated ne. This is abhominable,--which he would call abbominable: it insinuateth me of insanie: anne intelligis, domine? to make frantic, lunatic. SIR NATHANIEL Laus Deo, bene intelligo. HOLOFERNES Bon, bon, fort bon, Priscian! a little scratch'd, 'twill serve. SIR NATHANIEL Videsne quis venit? HOLOFERNES Video, et gaudeo. [Enter DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO, MOTH, and COSTARD] DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO Chirrah! [To MOTH] HOLOFERNES Quare chirrah, not sirrah? DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO Men of peace, well encountered. HOLOFERNES Most military sir, salutation. MOTH [Aside to COSTARD] They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps. COSTARD O, they have lived long on the alms-basket of words. I marvel thy master hath not eaten thee for a word; for thou art not so long by the head as honorificabilitudinitatibus: thou art easier swallowed than a flap-dragon. MOTH Peace! the peal begins. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO [To HOLOFERNES] Monsieur, are you not lettered? MOTH Yes, yes; he teaches boys the hornbook. What is a, b, spelt backward, with the horn on his head? HOLOFERNES Ba, pueritia, with a horn added. MOTH Ba, most silly sheep with a horn. You hear his learning. HOLOFERNES Quis, quis, thou consonant? MOTH The third of the five vowels, if you repeat them; or the fifth, if I. HOLOFERNES I will repeat them,--a, e, i,-- MOTH The sheep: the other two concludes it,--o, u. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO Now, by the salt wave of the Mediterraneum, a sweet touch, a quick venue of wit! snip, snap, quick and home! it rejoiceth my intellect: true wit! MOTH Offered by a child to an old man; which is wit-old. HOLOFERNES What is the figure? what is the figure? MOTH Horns. HOLOFERNES Thou disputest like an infant: go, whip thy gig. MOTH Lend me your horn to make one, and I will whip about your infamy circum circa,--a gig of a cuckold's horn. COSTARD An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst have it to buy gingerbread: hold, there is the very remuneration I had of thy master, thou halfpenny purse of wit, thou pigeon-egg of discretion. O, an the heavens were so pleased that thou wert but my bastard, what a joyful father wouldst thou make me! Go to; thou hast it ad dunghill, at the fingers' ends, as they say. HOLOFERNES O, I smell false Latin; dunghill for unguem. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO Arts-man, preambulate, we will be singled from the barbarous. Do you not educate youth at the charge-house on the top of the mountain? HOLOFERNES Or mons, the hill. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO At your sweet pleasure, for the mountain. HOLOFERNES I do, sans question. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO Sir, it is the king's most sweet pleasure and affection to congratulate the princess at her pavilion in the posteriors of this day, which the rude multitude call the afternoon. HOLOFERNES The posterior of the day, most generous sir, is liable, congruent and measurable for the afternoon: the word is well culled, chose, sweet and apt, I do assure you, sir, I do assure. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO Sir, the king is a noble gentleman, and my familiar, I do assure ye, very good friend: for what is inward between us, let it pass. I do beseech thee, remember thy courtesy; I beseech thee, apparel thy head: and among other important and most serious designs, and of great import indeed, too, but let that pass: for I must tell thee, it will please his grace, by the world, sometime to lean upon my poor shoulder, and with his royal finger, thus, dally with my excrement, with my mustachio; but, sweet heart, let that pass. By the world, I recount no fable: some certain special honours it pleaseth his greatness to impart to Armado, a soldier, a man of travel, that hath seen the world; but let that pass. The very all of all is,--but, sweet heart, I do implore secrecy,--that the king would have me present the princess, sweet chuck, with some delightful ostentation, or show, or pageant, or antique, or firework. Now, understanding that the curate and your sweet self are good at such eruptions and sudden breaking out of mirth, as it were, I have acquainted you withal, to the end to crave your assistance. HOLOFERNES Sir, you shall present before her the Nine Worthies. Sir, as concerning some entertainment of time, some show in the posterior of this day, to be rendered by our assistants, at the king's command, and this most gallant, illustrate, and learned gentleman, before the princess; I say none so fit as to present the Nine Worthies. SIR NATHANIEL Where will you find men worthy enough to present them? HOLOFERNES Joshua, yourself; myself and this gallant gentleman, Judas Maccabaeus; this swain, because of his great limb or joint, shall pass Pompey the Great; the page, Hercules,-- DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO Pardon, sir; error: he is not quantity enough for that Worthy's thumb: he is not so big as the end of his club. HOLOFERNES Shall I have audience? he shall present Hercules in minority: his enter and exit shall be strangling a snake; and I will have an apology for that purpose. MOTH An excellent device! so, if any of the audience hiss, you may cry 'Well done, Hercules! now thou crushest the snake!' that is the way to make an offence gracious, though few have the grace to do it. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO For the rest of the Worthies?-- HOLOFERNES I will play three myself. MOTH Thrice-worthy gentleman! DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO Shall I tell you a thing? HOLOFERNES We attend. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO We will have, if this fadge not, an antique. I beseech you, follow. HOLOFERNES Via, goodman Dull! thou hast spoken no word all this while. DULL Nor understood none neither, sir. HOLOFERNES Allons! we will employ thee. DULL I'll make one in a dance, or so; or I will play On the tabour to the Worthies, and let them dance the hay. HOLOFERNES Most dull, honest Dull! To our sport, away! [Exeunt] LOVE'S LABOURS LOST ACT V SCENE II The same. [Enter the PRINCESS, KATHARINE, ROSALINE, and MARIA] PRINCESS Sweet hearts, we shall be rich ere we depart, If fairings come thus plentifully in: A lady wall'd about with diamonds! Look you what I have from the loving king. ROSALINE Madame, came nothing else along with that? PRINCESS Nothing but this! yes, as much love in rhyme As would be cramm'd up in a sheet of paper, Writ o' both sides the leaf, margent and all, That he was fain to seal on Cupid's name. ROSALINE That was the way to make his godhead wax, For he hath been five thousand years a boy. KATHARINE Ay, and a shrewd unhappy gallows too. ROSALINE You'll ne'er be friends with him; a' kill'd your sister. KATHARINE He made her melancholy, sad, and heavy; And so she died: had she been light, like you, Of such a merry, nimble, stirring spirit, She might ha' been a grandam ere she died: And so may you; for a light heart lives long. ROSALINE What's your dark meaning, mouse, of this light word? KATHARINE A light condition in a beauty dark. ROSALINE We need more light to find your meaning out. KATHARINE You'll mar the light by taking it in snuff; Therefore I'll darkly end the argument. ROSALINE Look what you do, you do it still i' the dark. KATHARINE So do not you, for you are a light wench. ROSALINE Indeed I weigh not you, and therefore light. KATHARINE You weigh me not? O, that's you care not for me. ROSALINE Great reason; for 'past cure is still past care.' PRINCESS Well bandied both; a set of wit well play'd. But Rosaline, you have a favour too: Who sent it? and what is it? ROSALINE I would you knew: An if my face were but as fair as yours, My favour were as great; be witness this. Nay, I have verses too, I thank Biron: The numbers true; and, were the numbering too, I were the fairest goddess on the ground: I am compared to twenty thousand fairs. O, he hath drawn my picture in his letter! PRINCESS Any thing like? ROSALINE Much in the letters; nothing in the praise. PRINCESS Beauteous as ink; a good conclusion. KATHARINE Fair as a text B in a copy-book. ROSALINE 'Ware pencils, ho! let me not die your debtor, My red dominical, my golden letter: O, that your face were not so full of O's! KATHARINE A pox of that jest! and I beshrew all shrows. PRINCESS But, Katharine, what was sent to you from fair Dumain? KATHARINE Madam, this glove. PRINCESS Did he not send you twain? KATHARINE Yes, madam, and moreover Some thousand verses of a faithful lover, A huge translation of hypocrisy, Vilely compiled, profound simplicity. MARIA This and these pearls to me sent Longaville: The letter is too long by half a mile. PRINCESS I think no less. Dost thou not wish in heart The chain were longer and the letter short? MARIA Ay, or I would these hands might never part. PRINCESS We are wise girls to mock our lovers so. ROSALINE They are worse fools to purchase mocking so. That same Biron I'll torture ere I go: O that I knew he were but in by the week! How I would make him fawn and beg and seek And wait the season and observe the times And spend his prodigal wits in bootless rhymes And shape his service wholly to my hests And make him proud to make me proud that jests! So perttaunt-like would I o'ersway his state That he should be my fool and I his fate. PRINCESS None are so surely caught, when they are catch'd, As wit turn'd fool: folly, in wisdom hatch'd, Hath wisdom's warrant and the help of school And wit's own grace to grace a learned fool. ROSALINE The blood of youth burns not with such excess As gravity's revolt to wantonness. MARIA Folly in fools bears not so strong a note As foolery in the wise, when wit doth dote; Since all the power thereof it doth apply To prove, by wit, worth in simplicity. PRINCESS Here comes Boyet, and mirth is in his face. [Enter BOYET] BOYET O, I am stabb'd with laughter! Where's her grace? PRINCESS Thy news Boyet? BOYET Prepare, madam, prepare! Arm, wenches, arm! encounters mounted are Against your peace: Love doth approach disguised, Armed in arguments; you'll be surprised: Muster your wits; stand in your own defence; Or hide your heads like cowards, and fly hence. PRINCESS Saint Denis to Saint Cupid! What are they That charge their breath against us? say, scout, say. BOYET Under the cool shade of a sycamore I thought to close mine eyes some half an hour; When, lo! to interrupt my purposed rest, Toward that shade I might behold addrest The king and his companions: warily I stole into a neighbour thicket by, And overheard what you shall overhear, That, by and by, disguised they will be here. Their herald is a pretty knavish page, That well by heart hath conn'd his embassage: Action and accent did they teach him there; 'Thus must thou speak,' and 'thus thy body bear:' And ever and anon they made a doubt Presence majestical would put him out, 'For,' quoth the king, 'an angel shalt thou see; Yet fear not thou, but speak audaciously.' The boy replied, 'An angel is not evil; I should have fear'd her had she been a devil.' With that, all laugh'd and clapp'd him on the shoulder, Making the bold wag by their praises bolder: One rubb'd his elbow thus, and fleer'd and swore A better speech was never spoke before; Another, with his finger and his thumb, Cried, 'Via! we will do't, come what will come;' The third he caper'd, and cried, 'All goes well;' The fourth turn'd on the toe, and down he fell. With that, they all did tumble on the ground, With such a zealous laughter, so profound, That in this spleen ridiculous appears, To cheque their folly, passion's solemn tears. PRINCESS But what, but what, come they to visit us? BOYET They do, they do: and are apparell'd thus. Like Muscovites or Russians, as I guess. Their purpose is to parle, to court and dance; And every one his love-feat will advance Unto his several mistress, which they'll know By favours several which they did bestow. PRINCESS And will they so? the gallants shall be task'd; For, ladies, we shall every one be mask'd; And not a man of them shall have the grace, Despite of suit, to see a lady's face. Hold, Rosaline, this favour thou shalt wear, And then the king will court thee for his dear; Hold, take thou this, my sweet, and give me thine, So shall Biron take me for Rosaline. And change your favours too; so shall your loves Woo contrary, deceived by these removes. ROSALINE Come on, then; wear the favours most in sight. KATHARINE But in this changing what is your intent? PRINCESS The effect of my intent is to cross theirs: They do it but in mocking merriment; And mock for mock is only my intent. Their several counsels they unbosom shall To loves mistook, and so be mock'd withal Upon the next occasion that we meet, With visages displayed, to talk and greet. ROSALINE But shall we dance, if they desire to't? PRINCESS No, to the death, we will not move a foot; Nor to their penn'd speech render we no grace, But while 'tis spoke each turn away her face. BOYET Why, that contempt will kill the speaker's heart, And quite divorce his memory from his part. PRINCESS Therefore I do it; and I make no doubt The rest will ne'er come in, if he be out There's no such sport as sport by sport o'erthrown, To make theirs ours and ours none but our own: So shall we stay, mocking intended game, And they, well mock'd, depart away with shame. [Trumpets sound within] BOYET The trumpet sounds: be mask'd; the maskers come. [The Ladies mask] [Enter Blackamoors with music; MOTH; FERDINAND, BIRON, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN, in Russian habits, and masked] MOTH All hail, the richest beauties on the earth!-- BOYET Beauties no richer than rich taffeta. MOTH A holy parcel of the fairest dames. [The Ladies turn their backs to him] That ever turn'd their--backs--to mortal views! BIRON [Aside to MOTH] Their eyes, villain, their eyes! MOTH That ever turn'd their eyes to mortal views!--Out-- BOYET True; out indeed. MOTH Out of your favours, heavenly spirits, vouchsafe Not to behold-- BIRON [Aside to MOTH] Once to behold, rogue. MOTH Once to behold with your sun-beamed eyes, --with your sun-beamed eyes-- BOYET They will not answer to that epithet; You were best call it 'daughter-beamed eyes.' MOTH They do not mark me, and that brings me out. BIRON Is this your perfectness? be gone, you rogue! [Exit MOTH] ROSALINE What would these strangers? know their minds, Boyet: If they do speak our language, 'tis our will: That some plain man recount their purposes Know what they would. BOYET What would you with the princess? BIRON Nothing but peace and gentle visitation. ROSALINE What would they, say they? BOYET Nothing but peace and gentle visitation. ROSALINE Why, that they have; and bid them so be gone. BOYET She says, you have it, and you may be gone. FERDINAND Say to her, we have measured many miles To tread a measure with her on this grass. BOYET They say, that they have measured many a mile To tread a measure with you on this grass. ROSALINE It is not so. Ask them how many inches Is in one mile: if they have measured many, The measure then of one is easily told. BOYET If to come hither you have measured miles, And many miles, the princess bids you tell How many inches doth fill up one mile. BIRON Tell her, we measure them by weary steps. BOYET She hears herself. ROSALINE How many weary steps, Of many weary miles you have o'ergone, Are number'd in the travel of one mile? BIRON We number nothing that we spend for you: Our duty is so rich, so infinite, That we may do it still without accompt. Vouchsafe to show the sunshine of your face, That we, like savages, may worship it. ROSALINE My face is but a moon, and clouded too. FERDINAND Blessed are clouds, to do as such clouds do! Vouchsafe, bright moon, and these thy stars, to shine, Those clouds removed, upon our watery eyne. ROSALINE O vain petitioner! beg a greater matter; Thou now request'st but moonshine in the water. FERDINAND Then, in our measure do but vouchsafe one change. Thou bid'st me beg: this begging is not strange. ROSALINE Play, music, then! Nay, you must do it soon. [Music plays] Not yet! no dance! Thus change I like the moon. FERDINAND Will you not dance? How come you thus estranged? ROSALINE You took the moon at full, but now she's changed. FERDINAND Yet still she is the moon, and I the man. The music plays; vouchsafe some motion to it. ROSALINE Our ears vouchsafe it. FERDINAND But your legs should do it. ROSALINE Since you are strangers and come here by chance, We'll not be nice: take hands. We will not dance. FERDINAND Why take we hands, then? ROSALINE Only to part friends: Curtsy, sweet hearts; and so the measure ends. FERDINAND More measure of this measure; be not nice. ROSALINE We can afford no more at such a price. FERDINAND Prize you yourselves: what buys your company? ROSALINE Your absence only. FERDINAND That can never be. ROSALINE Then cannot we be bought: and so, adieu; Twice to your visor, and half once to you. FERDINAND If you deny to dance, let's hold more chat. ROSALINE In private, then. FERDINAND I am best pleased with that. [They converse apart] BIRON White-handed mistress, one sweet word with thee. PRINCESS Honey, and milk, and sugar; there is three. BIRON Nay then, two treys, and if you grow so nice, Metheglin, wort, and malmsey: well run, dice! There's half-a-dozen sweets. PRINCESS Seventh sweet, adieu: Since you can cog, I'll play no more with you. BIRON One word in secret. PRINCESS Let it not be sweet. BIRON Thou grievest my gall. PRINCESS Gall! bitter. BIRON Therefore meet. [They converse apart] DUMAIN Will you vouchsafe with me to change a word? MARIA Name it. DUMAIN Fair lady,-- MARIA Say you so? Fair lord,-- Take that for your fair lady. DUMAIN Please it you, As much in private, and I'll bid adieu. [They converse apart] KATHARINE What, was your vizard made without a tongue? LONGAVILLE I know the reason, lady, why you ask. KATHARINE O for your reason! quickly, sir; I long. LONGAVILLE You have a double tongue within your mask, And would afford my speechless vizard half. KATHARINE Veal, quoth the Dutchman. Is not 'veal' a calf? LONGAVILLE A calf, fair lady! KATHARINE No, a fair lord calf. LONGAVILLE Let's part the word. KATHARINE No, I'll not be your half Take all, and wean it; it may prove an ox. LONGAVILLE Look, how you butt yourself in these sharp mocks! Will you give horns, chaste lady? do not so. KATHARINE Then die a calf, before your horns do grow. LONGAVILLE One word in private with you, ere I die. KATHARINE Bleat softly then; the butcher hears you cry. [They converse apart] BOYET The tongues of mocking wenches are as keen As is the razor's edge invisible, Cutting a smaller hair than may be seen, Above the sense of sense; so sensible Seemeth their conference; their conceits have wings Fleeter than arrows, bullets, wind, thought, swifter things. ROSALINE Not one word more, my maids; break off, break off. BIRON By heaven, all dry-beaten with pure scoff! FERDINAND Farewell, mad wenches; you have simple wits. PRINCESS Twenty adieus, my frozen Muscovits. [Exeunt FERDINAND, Lords, and Blackamoors] Are these the breed of wits so wonder'd at? BOYET Tapers they are, with your sweet breaths puff'd out. ROSALINE Well-liking wits they have; gross, gross; fat, fat. PRINCESS O poverty in wit, kingly-poor flout! Will they not, think you, hang themselves tonight? Or ever, but in vizards, show their faces? This pert Biron was out of countenance quite. ROSALINE O, they were all in lamentable cases! The king was weeping-ripe for a good word. PRINCESS Biron did swear himself out of all suit. MARIA Dumain was at my service, and his sword: No point, quoth I; my servant straight was mute. KATHARINE Lord Longaville said, I came o'er his heart; And trow you what he called me? PRINCESS Qualm, perhaps. KATHARINE Yes, in good faith. PRINCESS Go, sickness as thou art! ROSALINE Well, better wits have worn plain statute-caps. But will you hear? the king is my love sworn. PRINCESS And quick Biron hath plighted faith to me. KATHARINE And Longaville was for my service born. MARIA Dumain is mine, as sure as bark on tree. BOYET Madam, and pretty mistresses, give ear: Immediately they will again be here In their own shapes; for it can never be They will digest this harsh indignity. PRINCESS Will they return? BOYET They will, they will, God knows, And leap for joy, though they are lame with blows: Therefore change favours; and, when they repair, Blow like sweet roses in this summer air. PRINCESS How blow? how blow? speak to be understood. BOYET Fair ladies mask'd are roses in their bud; Dismask'd, their damask sweet commixture shown, Are angels vailing clouds, or roses blown. PRINCESS Avaunt, perplexity! What shall we do, If they return in their own shapes to woo? ROSALINE Good madam, if by me you'll be advised, Let's, mock them still, as well known as disguised: Let us complain to them what fools were here, Disguised like Muscovites, in shapeless gear; And wonder what they were and to what end Their shallow shows and prologue vilely penn'd And their rough carriage so ridiculous, Should be presented at our tent to us. BOYET Ladies, withdraw: the gallants are at hand. PRINCESS Whip to our tents, as roes run o'er land. [Exeunt PRINCESS, ROSALINE, KATHARINE, and MARIA] [Re-enter FERDINAND, BIRON, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN, in their proper habits] FERDINAND Fair sir, God save you! Where's the princess? BOYET Gone to her tent. Please it your majesty Command me any service to her thither? FERDINAND That she vouchsafe me audience for one word. BOYET I will; and so will she, I know, my lord. [Exit] BIRON This fellow pecks up wit as pigeons pease, And utters it again when God doth please: He is wit's pedler, and retails his wares At wakes and wassails, meetings, markets, fairs; And we that sell by gross, the Lord doth know, Have not the grace to grace it with such show. This gallant pins the wenches on his sleeve; Had he been Adam, he had tempted Eve; A' can carve too, and lisp: why, this is he That kiss'd his hand away in courtesy; This is the ape of form, monsieur the nice, That, when he plays at tables, chides the dice In honourable terms: nay, he can sing A mean most meanly; and in ushering Mend him who can: the ladies call him sweet; The stairs, as he treads on them, kiss his feet: This is the flower that smiles on every one, To show his teeth as white as whale's bone; And consciences, that will not die in debt, Pay him the due of honey-tongued Boyet. FERDINAND A blister on his sweet tongue, with my heart, That put Armado's page out of his part! BIRON See where it comes! Behavior, what wert thou Till this madman show'd thee? and what art thou now? [Re-enter the PRINCESS, ushered by BOYET, ROSALINE, MARIA, and KATHARINE] FERDINAND All hail, sweet madam, and fair time of day! PRINCESS 'Fair' in 'all hail' is foul, as I conceive. FERDINAND Construe my speeches better, if you may. PRINCESS Then wish me better; I will give you leave. FERDINAND We came to visit you, and purpose now To lead you to our court; vouchsafe it then. PRINCESS This field shall hold me; and so hold your vow: Nor God, nor I, delights in perjured men. FERDINAND Rebuke me not for that which you provoke: The virtue of your eye must break my oath. PRINCESS You nickname virtue; vice you should have spoke; For virtue's office never breaks men's troth. Now by my maiden honour, yet as pure As the unsullied lily, I protest, A world of torments though I should endure, I would not yield to be your house's guest; So much I hate a breaking cause to be Of heavenly oaths, vow'd with integrity. FERDINAND O, you have lived in desolation here, Unseen, unvisited, much to our shame. PRINCESS Not so, my lord; it is not so, I swear; We have had pastimes here and pleasant game: A mess of Russians left us but of late. FERDINAND How, madam! Russians! PRINCESS Ay, in truth, my lord; Trim gallants, full of courtship and of state. ROSALINE Madam, speak true. It is not so, my lord: My lady, to the manner of the days, In courtesy gives undeserving praise. We four indeed confronted were with four In Russian habit: here they stay'd an hour, And talk'd apace; and in that hour, my lord, They did not bless us with one happy word. I dare not call them fools; but this I think, When they are thirsty, fools would fain have drink. BIRON This jest is dry to me. Fair gentle sweet, Your wit makes wise things foolish: when we greet, With eyes best seeing, heaven's fiery eye, By light we lose light: your capacity Is of that nature that to your huge store Wise things seem foolish and rich things but poor. ROSALINE This proves you wise and rich, for in my eye,-- BIRON I am a fool, and full of poverty. ROSALINE But that you take what doth to you belong, It were a fault to snatch words from my tongue. BIRON O, I am yours, and all that I possess! ROSALINE All the fool mine? BIRON I cannot give you less. ROSALINE Which of the vizards was it that you wore? BIRON Where? when? what vizard? why demand you this? ROSALINE There, then, that vizard; that superfluous case That hid the worse and show'd the better face. FERDINAND We are descried; they'll mock us now downright. DUMAIN Let us confess and turn it to a jest. PRINCESS Amazed, my lord? why looks your highness sad? ROSALINE Help, hold his brows! he'll swoon! Why look you pale? Sea-sick, I think, coming from Muscovy. BIRON Thus pour the stars down plagues for perjury. Can any face of brass hold longer out? Here stand I lady, dart thy skill at me; Bruise me with scorn, confound me with a flout; Thrust thy sharp wit quite through my ignorance; Cut me to pieces with thy keen conceit; And I will wish thee never more to dance, Nor never more in Russian habit wait. O, never will I trust to speeches penn'd, Nor to the motion of a schoolboy's tongue, Nor never come in vizard to my friend, Nor woo in rhyme, like a blind harper's song! Taffeta phrases, silken terms precise, Three-piled hyperboles, spruce affectation, Figures pedantical; these summer-flies Have blown me full of maggot ostentation: I do forswear them; and I here protest, By this white glove;--how white the hand, God knows!-- Henceforth my wooing mind shall be express'd In russet yeas and honest kersey noes: And, to begin, wench,--so God help me, la!-- My love to thee is sound, sans crack or flaw. ROSALINE Sans sans, I pray you. BIRON Yet I have a trick Of the old rage: bear with me, I am sick; I'll leave it by degrees. Soft, let us see: Write, 'Lord have mercy on us' on those three; They are infected; in their hearts it lies; They have the plague, and caught it of your eyes; These lords are visited; you are not free, For the Lord's tokens on you do I see. PRINCESS No, they are free that gave these tokens to us. BIRON Our states are forfeit: seek not to undo us. ROSALINE It is not so; for how can this be true, That you stand forfeit, being those that sue? BIRON Peace! for I will not have to do with you. ROSALINE Nor shall not, if I do as I intend. BIRON Speak for yourselves; my wit is at an end. FERDINAND Teach us, sweet madam, for our rude transgression Some fair excuse. PRINCESS The fairest is confession. Were not you here but even now disguised? FERDINAND Madam, I was. PRINCESS And were you well advised? FERDINAND I was, fair madam. PRINCESS When you then were here, What did you whisper in your lady's ear? FERDINAND That more than all the world I did respect her. PRINCESS When she shall challenge this, you will reject her. FERDINAND Upon mine honour, no. PRINCESS Peace, peace! forbear: Your oath once broke, you force not to forswear. FERDINAND Despise me, when I break this oath of mine. PRINCESS I will: and therefore keep it. Rosaline, What did the Russian whisper in your ear? ROSALINE Madam, he swore that he did hold me dear As precious eyesight, and did value me Above this world; adding thereto moreover That he would wed me, or else die my lover. PRINCESS God give thee joy of him! the noble lord Most honourably doth unhold his word. FERDINAND What mean you, madam? by my life, my troth, I never swore this lady such an oath. ROSALINE By heaven, you did; and to confirm it plain, You gave me this: but take it, sir, again. FERDINAND My faith and this the princess I did give: I knew her by this jewel on her sleeve. PRINCESS Pardon me, sir, this jewel did she wear; And Lord Biron, I thank him, is my dear. What, will you have me, or your pearl again? BIRON Neither of either; I remit both twain. I see the trick on't: here was a consent, Knowing aforehand of our merriment, To dash it like a Christmas comedy: Some carry-tale, some please-man, some slight zany, Some mumble-news, some trencher-knight, some Dick, That smiles his cheek in years and knows the trick To make my lady laugh when she's disposed, Told our intents before; which once disclosed, The ladies did change favours: and then we, Following the signs, woo'd but the sign of she. Now, to our perjury to add more terror, We are again forsworn, in will and error. Much upon this it is: and might not you [To BOYET] Forestall our sport, to make us thus untrue? Do not you know my lady's foot by the squier, And laugh upon the apple of her eye? And stand between her back, sir, and the fire, Holding a trencher, jesting merrily? You put our page out: go, you are allow'd; Die when you will, a smock shall be your shroud. You leer upon me, do you? there's an eye Wounds like a leaden sword. BOYET Full merrily Hath this brave manage, this career, been run. BIRON Lo, he is tilting straight! Peace! I have done. [Enter COSTARD] Welcome, pure wit! thou partest a fair fray. COSTARD O Lord, sir, they would know Whether the three Worthies shall come in or no. BIRON What, are there but three? COSTARD No, sir; but it is vara fine, For every one pursents three. BIRON And three times thrice is nine. COSTARD Not so, sir; under correction, sir; I hope it is not so. You cannot beg us, sir, I can assure you, sir we know what we know: I hope, sir, three times thrice, sir,-- BIRON Is not nine. COSTARD Under correction, sir, we know whereuntil it doth amount. BIRON By Jove, I always took three threes for nine. COSTARD O Lord, sir, it were pity you should get your living by reckoning, sir. BIRON How much is it? COSTARD O Lord, sir, the parties themselves, the actors, sir, will show whereuntil it doth amount: for mine own part, I am, as they say, but to parfect one man in one poor man, Pompion the Great, sir. BIRON Art thou one of the Worthies? COSTARD It pleased them to think me worthy of Pompion the Great: for mine own part, I know not the degree of the Worthy, but I am to stand for him. BIRON Go, bid them prepare. COSTARD We will turn it finely off, sir; we will take some care. [Exit] FERDINAND Biron, they will shame us: let them not approach. BIRON We are shame-proof, my lord: and tis some policy To have one show worse than the king's and his company. FERDINAND I say they shall not come. PRINCESS Nay, my good lord, let me o'errule you now: That sport best pleases that doth least know how: Where zeal strives to content, and the contents Dies in the zeal of that which it presents: Their form confounded makes most form in mirth, When great things labouring perish in their birth. BIRON A right description of our sport, my lord. [Enter DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO] DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO Anointed, I implore so much expense of thy royal sweet breath as will utter a brace of words. [Converses apart with FERDINAND, and delivers him a paper] PRINCESS Doth this man serve God? BIRON Why ask you? PRINCESS He speaks not like a man of God's making. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO That is all one, my fair, sweet, honey monarch; for, I protest, the schoolmaster is exceeding fantastical; too, too vain, too too vain: but we will put it, as they say, to fortuna de la guerra. I wish you the peace of mind, most royal couplement! [Exit] FERDINAND Here is like to be a good presence of Worthies. He presents Hector of Troy; the swain, Pompey the Great; the parish curate, Alexander; Armado's page, Hercules; the pedant, Judas Maccabaeus: And if these four Worthies in their first show thrive, These four will change habits, and present the other five. BIRON There is five in the first show. FERDINAND You are deceived; 'tis not so. BIRON The pedant, the braggart, the hedge-priest, the fool and the boy:-- Abate throw at novum, and the whole world again Cannot pick out five such, take each one in his vein. FERDINAND The ship is under sail, and here she comes amain. [Enter COSTARD, for Pompey] COSTARD I Pompey am,-- BOYET You lie, you are not he. COSTARD I Pompey am,-- BOYET With libbard's head on knee. BIRON Well said, old mocker: I must needs be friends with thee. COSTARD I Pompey am, Pompey surnamed the Big-- DUMAIN The Great. COSTARD It is, 'Great,' sir:-- Pompey surnamed the Great; That oft in field, with targe and shield, did make my foe to sweat: And travelling along this coast, I here am come by chance, And lay my arms before the legs of this sweet lass of France, If your ladyship would say, 'Thanks, Pompey,' I had done. PRINCESS Great thanks, great Pompey. COSTARD 'Tis not so much worth; but I hope I was perfect: I made a little fault in 'Great.' BIRON My hat to a halfpenny, Pompey proves the best Worthy. [Enter SIR NATHANIEL, for Alexander] SIR NATHANIEL When in the world I lived, I was the world's commander; By east, west, north, and south, I spread my conquering might: My scutcheon plain declares that I am Alisander,-- BOYET Your nose says, no, you are not for it stands too right. BIRON Your nose smells 'no' in this, most tender-smelling knight. PRINCESS The conqueror is dismay'd. Proceed, good Alexander. SIR NATHANIEL When in the world I lived, I was the world's commander,-- BOYET Most true, 'tis right; you were so, Alisander. BIRON Pompey the Great,-- COSTARD Your servant, and Costard. BIRON Take away the conqueror, take away Alisander. COSTARD [To SIR NATHANIEL] O, sir, you have overthrown Alisander the conqueror! You will be scraped out of the painted cloth for this: your lion, that holds his poll-axe sitting on a close-stool, will be given to Ajax: he will be the ninth Worthy. A conqueror, and afeard to speak! run away for shame, Alisander. [SIR NATHANIEL retires] There, an't shall please you; a foolish mild man; an honest man, look you, and soon dashed. He is a marvellous good neighbour, faith, and a very good bowler: but, for Alisander,--alas, you see how 'tis,--a little o'erparted. But there are Worthies a-coming will speak their mind in some other sort. [Enter HOLOFERNES, for Judas; and MOTH, for Hercules] HOLOFERNES Great Hercules is presented by this imp, Whose club kill'd Cerberus, that three-headed canis; And when he was a babe, a child, a shrimp, Thus did he strangle serpents in his manus. Quoniam he seemeth in minority, Ergo I come with this apology. Keep some state in thy exit, and vanish. [MOTH retires] Judas I am,-- DUMAIN A Judas! HOLOFERNES Not Iscariot, sir. Judas I am, ycliped Maccabaeus. DUMAIN Judas Maccabaeus clipt is plain Judas. BIRON A kissing traitor. How art thou proved Judas? HOLOFERNES Judas I am,-- DUMAIN The more shame for you, Judas. HOLOFERNES What mean you, sir? BOYET To make Judas hang himself. HOLOFERNES Begin, sir; you are my elder. BIRON Well followed: Judas was hanged on an elder. HOLOFERNES I will not be put out of countenance. BIRON Because thou hast no face. HOLOFERNES What is this? BOYET A cittern-head. DUMAIN The head of a bodkin. BIRON A Death's face in a ring. LONGAVILLE The face of an old Roman coin, scarce seen. BOYET The pommel of Caesar's falchion. DUMAIN The carved-bone face on a flask. BIRON Saint George's half-cheek in a brooch. DUMAIN Ay, and in a brooch of lead. BIRON Ay, and worn in the cap of a tooth-drawer. And now forward; for we have put thee in countenance. HOLOFERNES You have put me out of countenance. BIRON False; we have given thee faces. HOLOFERNES But you have out-faced them all. BIRON An thou wert a lion, we would do so. BOYET Therefore, as he is an ass, let him go. And so adieu, sweet Jude! nay, why dost thou stay? DUMAIN For the latter end of his name. BIRON For the ass to the Jude; give it him:--Jud-as, away! HOLOFERNES This is not generous, not gentle, not humble. BOYET A light for Monsieur Judas! it grows dark, he may stumble. [HOLOFERNES retires] PRINCESS Alas, poor Maccabaeus, how hath he been baited! [Enter DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO, for Hector] BIRON Hide thy head, Achilles: here comes Hector in arms. DUMAIN Though my mocks come home by me, I will now be merry. FERDINAND Hector was but a Troyan in respect of this. BOYET But is this Hector? FERDINAND I think Hector was not so clean-timbered. LONGAVILLE His leg is too big for Hector's. DUMAIN More calf, certain. BOYET No; he is best endued in the small. BIRON This cannot be Hector. DUMAIN He's a god or a painter; for he makes faces. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO The armipotent Mars, of lances the almighty, Gave Hector a gift,-- DUMAIN A gilt nutmeg. BIRON A lemon. LONGAVILLE Stuck with cloves. DUMAIN No, cloven. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO Peace!-- The armipotent Mars, of lances the almighty Gave Hector a gift, the heir of Ilion; A man so breathed, that certain he would fight; yea From morn till night, out of his pavilion. I am that flower,-- DUMAIN That mint. LONGAVILLE That columbine. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO Sweet Lord Longaville, rein thy tongue. LONGAVILLE I must rather give it the rein, for it runs against Hector. DUMAIN Ay, and Hector's a greyhound. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO The sweet war-man is dead and rotten; sweet chucks, beat not the bones of the buried: when he breathed, he was a man. But I will forward with my device. [To the PRINCESS] Sweet royalty, bestow on me the sense of hearing. PRINCESS Speak, brave Hector: we are much delighted. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO I do adore thy sweet grace's slipper. BOYET [Aside to DUMAIN] Loves her by the foot,-- DUMAIN [Aside to BOYET] He may not by the yard. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO This Hector far surmounted Hannibal,-- COSTARD The party is gone, fellow Hector, she is gone; she is two months on her way. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO What meanest thou? COSTARD Faith, unless you play the honest Troyan, the poor wench is cast away: she's quick; the child brags in her belly already: tis yours. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO Dost thou infamonize me among potentates? thou shalt die. COSTARD Then shall Hector be whipped for Jaquenetta that is quick by him and hanged for Pompey that is dead by him. DUMAIN Most rare Pompey! BOYET Renowned Pompey! BIRON Greater than great, great, great, great Pompey! Pompey the Huge! DUMAIN Hector trembles. BIRON Pompey is moved. More Ates, more Ates! stir them on! stir them on! DUMAIN Hector will challenge him. BIRON Ay, if a' have no man's blood in's belly than will sup a flea. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO By the north pole, I do challenge thee. COSTARD I will not fight with a pole, like a northern man: I'll slash; I'll do it by the sword. I bepray you, let me borrow my arms again. DUMAIN Room for the incensed Worthies! COSTARD I'll do it in my shirt. DUMAIN Most resolute Pompey! MOTH Master, let me take you a buttonhole lower. Do you not see Pompey is uncasing for the combat? What mean you? You will lose your reputation. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO Gentlemen and soldiers, pardon me; I will not combat in my shirt. DUMAIN You may not deny it: Pompey hath made the challenge. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO Sweet bloods, I both may and will. BIRON What reason have you for't? DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO The naked truth of it is, I have no shirt; I go woolward for penance. BOYET True, and it was enjoined him in Rome for want of linen: since when, I'll be sworn, he wore none but a dishclout of Jaquenetta's, and that a' wears next his heart for a favour. [Enter MERCADE] MERCADE God save you, madam! PRINCESS Welcome, Mercade; But that thou interrupt'st our merriment. MERCADE I am sorry, madam; for the news I bring Is heavy in my tongue. The king your father-- PRINCESS Dead, for my life! MERCADE Even so; my tale is told. BIRON Worthies, away! the scene begins to cloud. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO For mine own part, I breathe free breath. I have seen the day of wrong through the little hole of discretion, and I will right myself like a soldier. [Exeunt Worthies] FERDINAND How fares your majesty? PRINCESS Boyet, prepare; I will away tonight. FERDINAND Madam, not so; I do beseech you, stay. PRINCESS Prepare, I say. I thank you, gracious lords, For all your fair endeavors; and entreat, Out of a new-sad soul, that you vouchsafe In your rich wisdom to excuse or hide The liberal opposition of our spirits, If over-boldly we have borne ourselves In the converse of breath: your gentleness Was guilty of it. Farewell worthy lord! A heavy heart bears not a nimble tongue: Excuse me so, coming too short of thanks For my great suit so easily obtain'd. FERDINAND The extreme parts of time extremely forms All causes to the purpose of his speed, And often at his very loose decides That which long process could not arbitrate: And though the mourning brow of progeny Forbid the smiling courtesy of love The holy suit which fain it would convince, Yet, since love's argument was first on foot, Let not the cloud of sorrow justle it From what it purposed; since, to wail friends lost Is not by much so wholesome-profitable As to rejoice at friends but newly found. PRINCESS I understand you not: my griefs are double. BIRON Honest plain words best pierce the ear of grief; And by these badges understand the king. For your fair sakes have we neglected time, Play'd foul play with our oaths: your beauty, ladies, Hath much deform'd us, fashioning our humours Even to the opposed end of our intents: And what in us hath seem'd ridiculous,-- As love is full of unbefitting strains, All wanton as a child, skipping and vain, Form'd by the eye and therefore, like the eye, Full of strange shapes, of habits and of forms, Varying in subjects as the eye doth roll To every varied object in his glance: Which parti-coated presence of loose love Put on by us, if, in your heavenly eyes, Have misbecomed our oaths and gravities, Those heavenly eyes, that look into these faults, Suggested us to make. Therefore, ladies, Our love being yours, the error that love makes Is likewise yours: we to ourselves prove false, By being once false for ever to be true To those that make us both,--fair ladies, you: And even that falsehood, in itself a sin, Thus purifies itself and turns to grace. PRINCESS We have received your letters full of love; Your favours, the ambassadors of love; And, in our maiden council, rated them At courtship, pleasant jest and courtesy, As bombast and as lining to the time: But more devout than this in our respects Have we not been; and therefore met your loves In their own fashion, like a merriment. DUMAIN Our letters, madam, show'd much more than jest. LONGAVILLE So did our looks. ROSALINE We did not quote them so. FERDINAND Now, at the latest minute of the hour, Grant us your loves. PRINCESS A time, methinks, too short To make a world-without-end bargain in. No, no, my lord, your grace is perjured much, Full of dear guiltiness; and therefore this: If for my love, as there is no such cause, You will do aught, this shall you do for me: Your oath I will not trust; but go with speed To some forlorn and naked hermitage, Remote from all the pleasures of the world; There stay until the twelve celestial signs Have brought about the annual reckoning. If this austere insociable life Change not your offer made in heat of blood; If frosts and fasts, hard lodging and thin weeds Nip not the gaudy blossoms of your love, But that it bear this trial and last love; Then, at the expiration of the year, Come challenge me, challenge me by these deserts, And, by this virgin palm now kissing thine I will be thine; and till that instant shut My woeful self up in a mourning house, Raining the tears of lamentation For the remembrance of my father's death. If this thou do deny, let our hands part, Neither entitled in the other's heart. FERDINAND If this, or more than this, I would deny, To flatter up these powers of mine with rest, The sudden hand of death close up mine eye! Hence ever then my heart is in thy breast. BIRON [And what to me, my love? and what to me? ROSALINE You must be purged too, your sins are rack'd, You are attaint with faults and perjury: Therefore if you my favour mean to get, A twelvemonth shall you spend, and never rest, But seek the weary beds of people sick] DUMAIN But what to me, my love? but what to me? A wife? KATHARINE A beard, fair health, and honesty; With three-fold love I wish you all these three. DUMAIN O, shall I say, I thank you, gentle wife? KATHARINE Not so, my lord; a twelvemonth and a day I'll mark no words that smooth-faced wooers say: Come when the king doth to my lady come; Then, if I have much love, I'll give you some. DUMAIN I'll serve thee true and faithfully till then. KATHARINE Yet swear not, lest ye be forsworn again. LONGAVILLE What says Maria? MARIA At the twelvemonth's end I'll change my black gown for a faithful friend. LONGAVILLE I'll stay with patience; but the time is long. MARIA The liker you; few taller are so young. BIRON Studies my lady? mistress, look on me; Behold the window of my heart, mine eye, What humble suit attends thy answer there: Impose some service on me for thy love. ROSALINE Oft have I heard of you, my Lord Biron, Before I saw you; and the world's large tongue Proclaims you for a man replete with mocks, Full of comparisons and wounding flouts, Which you on all estates will execute That lie within the mercy of your wit. To weed this wormwood from your fruitful brain, And therewithal to win me, if you please, Without the which I am not to be won, You shall this twelvemonth term from day to day Visit the speechless sick and still converse With groaning wretches; and your task shall be, With all the fierce endeavor of your wit To enforce the pained impotent to smile. BIRON To move wild laughter in the throat of death? It cannot be; it is impossible: Mirth cannot move a soul in agony. ROSALINE Why, that's the way to choke a gibing spirit, Whose influence is begot of that loose grace Which shallow laughing hearers give to fools: A jest's prosperity lies in the ear Of him that hears it, never in the tongue Of him that makes it: then, if sickly ears, Deaf'd with the clamours of their own dear groans, Will hear your idle scorns, continue then, And I will have you and that fault withal; But if they will not, throw away that spirit, And I shall find you empty of that fault, Right joyful of your reformation. BIRON A twelvemonth! well; befall what will befall, I'll jest a twelvemonth in an hospital. PRINCESS [To FERDINAND] Ay, sweet my lord; and so I take my leave. FERDINAND No, madam; we will bring you on your way. BIRON Our wooing doth not end like an old play; Jack hath not Jill: these ladies' courtesy Might well have made our sport a comedy. FERDINAND Come, sir, it wants a twelvemonth and a day, And then 'twill end. BIRON That's too long for a play. [Re-enter DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO] DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO Sweet majesty, vouchsafe me,-- PRINCESS Was not that Hector? DUMAIN The worthy knight of Troy. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO I will kiss thy royal finger, and take leave. I am a votary; I have vowed to Jaquenetta to hold the plough for her sweet love three years. But, most esteemed greatness, will you hear the dialogue that the two learned men have compiled in praise of the owl and the cuckoo? It should have followed in the end of our show. FERDINAND Call them forth quickly; we will do so. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO Holla! approach. [Re-enter HOLOFERNES, SIR NATHANIEL, MOTH, COSTARD, and others] This side is Hiems, Winter, this Ver, the Spring; the one maintained by the owl, the other by the cuckoo. Ver, begin. [THE SONG] SPRING. When daisies pied and violets blue And lady-smocks all silver-white And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue Do paint the meadows with delight, The cuckoo then, on every tree, Mocks married men; for thus sings he, Cuckoo; Cuckoo, cuckoo: O word of fear, Unpleasing to a married ear! When shepherds pipe on oaten straws And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks, When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws, And maidens bleach their summer smocks The cuckoo then, on every tree, Mocks married men; for thus sings he, Cuckoo; Cuckoo, cuckoo: O word of fear, Unpleasing to a married ear! WINTER. When icicles hang by the wall And Dick the shepherd blows his nail And Tom bears logs into the hall And milk comes frozen home in pail, When blood is nipp'd and ways be foul, Then nightly sings the staring owl, Tu-whit; Tu-who, a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. When all aloud the wind doth blow And coughing drowns the parson's saw And birds sit brooding in the snow And Marian's nose looks red and raw, When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl, Then nightly sings the staring owl, Tu-whit; Tu-who, a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO The words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo. You that way: we this way. [Exeunt] MEASURE FOR MEASURE DRAMATIS PERSONAE VINCENTIO the Duke. (DUKE VINCENTIO:) ANGELO Deputy. ESCALUS an ancient Lord. CLAUDIO a young gentleman. LUCIO a fantastic. Two other gentlemen. (First Gentleman:) (Second Gentleman:) Provost. PETER (FRIAR PETER:) | | two friars. THOMAS (FRIAR THOMAS:) | A Justice. VARRIUS: ELBOW a simple constable. FROTH a foolish gentleman. POMPEY servant to Mistress Overdone. ABHORSON an executioner. BARNARDINE a dissolute prisoner. ISABELLA sister to Claudio. MARIANA betrothed to Angelo. JULIET beloved of Claudio. FRANCISCA a nun. MISTRESS OVERDONE a bawd. Lords, Officers, Citizens, Boy, and Attendant. (Servant:) (Messenger:) SCENE Vienna. MEASURE FOR MEASURE ACT I SCENE I An apartment in the DUKE'S palace. [Enter DUKE VINCENTIO, ESCALUS, Lords and Attendants] DUKE VINCENTIO Escalus. ESCALUS My lord. DUKE VINCENTIO Of government the properties to unfold, Would seem in me to affect speech and discourse; Since I am put to know that your own science Exceeds, in that, the lists of all advice My strength can give you: then no more remains, But that to your sufficiency [ ] [ ] as your Worth is able, And let them work. The nature of our people, Our city's institutions, and the terms For common justice, you're as pregnant in As art and practise hath enriched any That we remember. There is our commission, From which we would not have you warp. Call hither, I say, bid come before us Angelo. [Exit an Attendant] What figure of us think you he will bear? For you must know, we have with special soul Elected him our absence to supply, Lent him our terror, dress'd him with our love, And given his deputation all the organs Of our own power: what think you of it? ESCALUS If any in Vienna be of worth To undergo such ample grace and honour, It is Lord Angelo. DUKE VINCENTIO Look where he comes. [Enter ANGELO] ANGELO Always obedient to your grace's will, I come to know your pleasure. DUKE VINCENTIO Angelo, There is a kind of character in thy life, That to the observer doth thy history Fully unfold. Thyself and thy belongings Are not thine own so proper as to waste Thyself upon thy virtues, they on thee. Heaven doth with us as we with torches do, Not light them for themselves; for if our virtues Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touch'd But to fine issues, nor Nature never lends The smallest scruple of her excellence But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines Herself the glory of a creditor, Both thanks and use. But I do bend my speech To one that can my part in him advertise; Hold therefore, Angelo:-- In our remove be thou at full ourself; Mortality and mercy in Vienna Live in thy tongue and heart: old Escalus, Though first in question, is thy secondary. Take thy commission. ANGELO Now, good my lord, Let there be some more test made of my metal, Before so noble and so great a figure Be stamp'd upon it. DUKE VINCENTIO No more evasion: We have with a leaven'd and prepared choice Proceeded to you; therefore take your honours. Our haste from hence is of so quick condition That it prefers itself and leaves unquestion'd Matters of needful value. We shall write to you, As time and our concernings shall importune, How it goes with us, and do look to know What doth befall you here. So, fare you well; To the hopeful execution do I leave you Of your commissions. ANGELO Yet give leave, my lord, That we may bring you something on the way. DUKE VINCENTIO My haste may not admit it; Nor need you, on mine honour, have to do With any scruple; your scope is as mine own So to enforce or qualify the laws As to your soul seems good. Give me your hand: I'll privily away. I love the people, But do not like to stage me to their eyes: Through it do well, I do not relish well Their loud applause and Aves vehement; Nor do I think the man of safe discretion That does affect it. Once more, fare you well. ANGELO The heavens give safety to your purposes! ESCALUS Lead forth and bring you back in happiness! DUKE I thank you. Fare you well. [Exit] ESCALUS I shall desire you, sir, to give me leave To have free speech with you; and it concerns me To look into the bottom of my place: A power I have, but of what strength and nature I am not yet instructed. ANGELO 'Tis so with me. Let us withdraw together, And we may soon our satisfaction have Touching that point. ESCALUS I'll wait upon your honour. [Exeunt] MEASURE FOR MEASURE ACT I SCENE II A Street. [Enter LUCIO and two Gentlemen] LUCIO If the duke with the other dukes come not to composition with the King of Hungary, why then all the dukes fall upon the king. First Gentleman Heaven grant us its peace, but not the King of Hungary's! Second Gentleman Amen. LUCIO Thou concludest like the sanctimonious pirate, that went to sea with the Ten Commandments, but scraped one out of the table. Second Gentleman 'Thou shalt not steal'? LUCIO Ay, that he razed. First Gentleman Why, 'twas a commandment to command the captain and all the rest from their functions: they put forth to steal. There's not a soldier of us all, that, in the thanksgiving before meat, do relish the petition well that prays for peace. Second Gentleman I never heard any soldier dislike it. LUCIO I believe thee; for I think thou never wast where grace was said. Second Gentleman No? a dozen times at least. First Gentleman What, in metre? LUCIO In any proportion or in any language. First Gentleman I think, or in any religion. LUCIO Ay, why not? Grace is grace, despite of all controversy: as, for example, thou thyself art a wicked villain, despite of all grace. First Gentleman Well, there went but a pair of shears between us. LUCIO I grant; as there may between the lists and the velvet. Thou art the list. First Gentleman And thou the velvet: thou art good velvet; thou'rt a three-piled piece, I warrant thee: I had as lief be a list of an English kersey as be piled, as thou art piled, for a French velvet. Do I speak feelingly now? LUCIO I think thou dost; and, indeed, with most painful feeling of thy speech: I will, out of thine own confession, learn to begin thy health; but, whilst I live, forget to drink after thee. First Gentleman I think I have done myself wrong, have I not? Second Gentleman Yes, that thou hast, whether thou art tainted or free. LUCIO Behold, behold. where Madam Mitigation comes! I have purchased as many diseases under her roof as come to-- Second Gentleman To what, I pray? LUCIO Judge. Second Gentleman To three thousand dolours a year. First Gentleman Ay, and more. LUCIO A French crown more. First Gentleman Thou art always figuring diseases in me; but thou art full of error; I am sound. LUCIO Nay, not as one would say, healthy; but so sound as things that are hollow: thy bones are hollow; impiety has made a feast of thee. [Enter MISTRESS OVERDONE] First Gentleman How now! which of your hips has the most profound sciatica? MISTRESS OVERDONE Well, well; there's one yonder arrested and carried to prison was worth five thousand of you all. Second Gentleman Who's that, I pray thee? MISTRESS OVERDONE Marry, sir, that's Claudio, Signior Claudio. First Gentleman Claudio to prison? 'tis not so. MISTRESS OVERDONE Nay, but I know 'tis so: I saw him arrested, saw him carried away; and, which is more, within these three days his head to be chopped off. LUCIO But, after all this fooling, I would not have it so. Art thou sure of this? MISTRESS OVERDONE I am too sure of it: and it is for getting Madam Julietta with child. LUCIO Believe me, this may be: he promised to meet me two hours since, and he was ever precise in promise-keeping. Second Gentleman Besides, you know, it draws something near to the speech we had to such a purpose. First Gentleman But, most of all, agreeing with the proclamation. LUCIO Away! let's go learn the truth of it. [Exeunt LUCIO and Gentlemen] MISTRESS OVERDONE Thus, what with the war, what with the sweat, what with the gallows and what with poverty, I am custom-shrunk. [Enter POMPEY] How now! what's the news with you? POMPEY Yonder man is carried to prison. MISTRESS OVERDONE Well; what has he done? POMPEY A woman. MISTRESS OVERDONE But what's his offence? POMPEY Groping for trouts in a peculiar river. MISTRESS OVERDONE What, is there a maid with child by him? POMPEY No, but there's a woman with maid by him. You have not heard of the proclamation, have you? MISTRESS OVERDONE What proclamation, man? POMPEY All houses in the suburbs of Vienna must be plucked down. MISTRESS OVERDONE And what shall become of those in the city? POMPEY They shall stand for seed: they had gone down too, but that a wise burgher put in for them. MISTRESS OVERDONE But shall all our houses of resort in the suburbs be pulled down? POMPEY To the ground, mistress. MISTRESS OVERDONE Why, here's a change indeed in the commonwealth! What shall become of me? POMPEY Come; fear you not: good counsellors lack no clients: though you change your place, you need not change your trade; I'll be your tapster still. Courage! there will be pity taken on you: you that have worn your eyes almost out in the service, you will be considered. MISTRESS OVERDONE What's to do here, Thomas tapster? let's withdraw. POMPEY Here comes Signior Claudio, led by the provost to prison; and there's Madam Juliet. [Exeunt] [Enter Provost, CLAUDIO, JULIET, and Officers] CLAUDIO Fellow, why dost thou show me thus to the world? Bear me to prison, where I am committed. Provost I do it not in evil disposition, But from Lord Angelo by special charge. CLAUDIO Thus can the demigod Authority Make us pay down for our offence by weight The words of heaven; on whom it will, it will; On whom it will not, so; yet still 'tis just. [Re-enter LUCIO and two Gentlemen] LUCIO Why, how now, Claudio! whence comes this restraint? CLAUDIO From too much liberty, my Lucio, liberty: As surfeit is the father of much fast, So every scope by the immoderate use Turns to restraint. Our natures do pursue, Like rats that ravin down their proper bane, A thirsty evil; and when we drink we die. LUCIO If could speak so wisely under an arrest, I would send for certain of my creditors: and yet, to say the truth, I had as lief have the foppery of freedom as the morality of imprisonment. What's thy offence, Claudio? CLAUDIO What but to speak of would offend again. LUCIO What, is't murder? CLAUDIO No. LUCIO Lechery? CLAUDIO Call it so. Provost Away, sir! you must go. CLAUDIO One word, good friend. Lucio, a word with you. LUCIO A hundred, if they'll do you any good. Is lechery so look'd after? CLAUDIO Thus stands it with me: upon a true contract I got possession of Julietta's bed: You know the lady; she is fast my wife, Save that we do the denunciation lack Of outward order: this we came not to, Only for propagation of a dower Remaining in the coffer of her friends, From whom we thought it meet to hide our love Till time had made them for us. But it chances The stealth of our most mutual entertainment With character too gross is writ on Juliet. LUCIO With child, perhaps? CLAUDIO Unhappily, even so. And the new deputy now for the duke-- Whether it be the fault and glimpse of newness, Or whether that the body public be A horse whereon the governor doth ride, Who, newly in the seat, that it may know He can command, lets it straight feel the spur; Whether the tyranny be in his place, Or in his emmence that fills it up, I stagger in:--but this new governor Awakes me all the enrolled penalties Which have, like unscour'd armour, hung by the wall So long that nineteen zodiacs have gone round And none of them been worn; and, for a name, Now puts the drowsy and neglected act Freshly on me: 'tis surely for a name. LUCIO I warrant it is: and thy head stands so tickle on thy shoulders that a milkmaid, if she be in love, may sigh it off. Send after the duke and appeal to him. CLAUDIO I have done so, but he's not to be found. I prithee, Lucio, do me this kind service: This day my sister should the cloister enter And there receive her approbation: Acquaint her with the danger of my state: Implore her, in my voice, that she make friends To the strict deputy; bid herself assay him: I have great hope in that; for in her youth There is a prone and speechless dialect, Such as move men; beside, she hath prosperous art When she will play with reason and discourse, And well she can persuade. LUCIO I pray she may; as well for the encouragement of the like, which else would stand under grievous imposition, as for the enjoying of thy life, who I would be sorry should be thus foolishly lost at a game of tick-tack. I'll to her. CLAUDIO I thank you, good friend Lucio. LUCIO Within two hours. CLAUDIO Come, officer, away! [Exeunt] MEASURE FOR MEASURE ACT I SCENE III A monastery. [Enter DUKE VINCENTIO and FRIAR THOMAS] DUKE VINCENTIO No, holy father; throw away that thought; Believe not that the dribbling dart of love Can pierce a complete bosom. Why I desire thee To give me secret harbour, hath a purpose More grave and wrinkled than the aims and ends Of burning youth. FRIAR THOMAS May your grace speak of it? DUKE VINCENTIO My holy sir, none better knows than you How I have ever loved the life removed And held in idle price to haunt assemblies Where youth, and cost, and witless bravery keeps. I have deliver'd to Lord Angelo, A man of stricture and firm abstinence, My absolute power and place here in Vienna, And he supposes me travell'd to Poland; For so I have strew'd it in the common ear, And so it is received. Now, pious sir, You will demand of me why I do this? FRIAR THOMAS Gladly, my lord. DUKE VINCENTIO We have strict statutes and most biting laws. The needful bits and curbs to headstrong weeds, Which for this nineteen years we have let slip; Even like an o'ergrown lion in a cave, That goes not out to prey. Now, as fond fathers, Having bound up the threatening twigs of birch, Only to stick it in their children's sight For terror, not to use, in time the rod Becomes more mock'd than fear'd; so our decrees, Dead to infliction, to themselves are dead; And liberty plucks justice by the nose; The baby beats the nurse, and quite athwart Goes all decorum. FRIAR THOMAS It rested in your grace To unloose this tied-up justice when you pleased: And it in you more dreadful would have seem'd Than in Lord Angelo. DUKE VINCENTIO I do fear, too dreadful: Sith 'twas my fault to give the people scope, 'Twould be my tyranny to strike and gall them For what I bid them do: for we bid this be done, When evil deeds have their permissive pass And not the punishment. Therefore indeed, my father, I have on Angelo imposed the office; Who may, in the ambush of my name, strike home, And yet my nature never in the fight To do in slander. And to behold his sway, I will, as 'twere a brother of your order, Visit both prince and people: therefore, I prithee, Supply me with the habit and instruct me How I may formally in person bear me Like a true friar. More reasons for this action At our more leisure shall I render you; Only, this one: Lord Angelo is precise; Stands at a guard with envy; scarce confesses That his blood flows, or that his appetite Is more to bread than stone: hence shall we see, If power change purpose, what our seemers be. [Exeunt] MEASURE FOR MEASURE ACT I SCENE IV A nunnery. [Enter ISABELLA and FRANCISCA] ISABELLA And have you nuns no farther privileges? FRANCISCA Are not these large enough? ISABELLA Yes, truly; I speak not as desiring more; But rather wishing a more strict restraint Upon the sisterhood, the votarists of Saint Clare. LUCIO [Within] Ho! Peace be in this place! ISABELLA Who's that which calls? FRANCISCA It is a man's voice. Gentle Isabella, Turn you the key, and know his business of him; You may, I may not; you are yet unsworn. When you have vow'd, you must not speak with men But in the presence of the prioress: Then, if you speak, you must not show your face, Or, if you show your face, you must not speak. He calls again; I pray you, answer him. [Exit] ISABELLA Peace and prosperity! Who is't that calls [Enter LUCIO] LUCIO Hail, virgin, if you be, as those cheek-roses Proclaim you are no less! Can you so stead me As bring me to the sight of Isabella, A novice of this place and the fair sister To her unhappy brother Claudio? ISABELLA Why 'her unhappy brother'? let me ask, The rather for I now must make you know I am that Isabella and his sister. LUCIO Gentle and fair, your brother kindly greets you: Not to be weary with you, he's in prison. ISABELLA Woe me! for what? LUCIO For that which, if myself might be his judge, He should receive his punishment in thanks: He hath got his friend with child. ISABELLA Sir, make me not your story. LUCIO It is true. I would not--though 'tis my familiar sin With maids to seem the lapwing and to jest, Tongue far from heart--play with all virgins so: I hold you as a thing ensky'd and sainted. By your renouncement an immortal spirit, And to be talk'd with in sincerity, As with a saint. ISABELLA You do blaspheme the good in mocking me. LUCIO Do not believe it. Fewness and truth, 'tis thus: Your brother and his lover have embraced: As those that feed grow full, as blossoming time That from the seedness the bare fallow brings To teeming foison, even so her plenteous womb Expresseth his full tilth and husbandry. ISABELLA Some one with child by him? My cousin Juliet? LUCIO Is she your cousin? ISABELLA Adoptedly; as school-maids change their names By vain though apt affection. LUCIO She it is. ISABELLA O, let him marry her. LUCIO This is the point. The duke is very strangely gone from hence; Bore many gentlemen, myself being one, In hand and hope of action: but we do learn By those that know the very nerves of state, His givings-out were of an infinite distance From his true-meant design. Upon his place, And with full line of his authority, Governs Lord Angelo; a man whose blood Is very snow-broth; one who never feels The wanton stings and motions of the sense, But doth rebate and blunt his natural edge With profits of the mind, study and fast. He--to give fear to use and liberty, Which have for long run by the hideous law, As mice by lions--hath pick'd out an act, Under whose heavy sense your brother's life Falls into forfeit: he arrests him on it; And follows close the rigour of the statute, To make him an example. All hope is gone, Unless you have the grace by your fair prayer To soften Angelo: and that's my pith of business 'Twixt you and your poor brother. ISABELLA Doth he so seek his life? LUCIO Has censured him Already; and, as I hear, the provost hath A warrant for his execution. ISABELLA Alas! what poor ability's in me To do him good? LUCIO Assay the power you have. ISABELLA My power? Alas, I doubt-- LUCIO Our doubts are traitors And make us lose the good we oft might win By fearing to attempt. Go to Lord Angelo, And let him learn to know, when maidens sue, Men give like gods; but when they weep and kneel, All their petitions are as freely theirs As they themselves would owe them. ISABELLA I'll see what I can do. LUCIO But speedily. ISABELLA I will about it straight; No longer staying but to give the mother Notice of my affair. I humbly thank you: Commend me to my brother: soon at night I'll send him certain word of my success. LUCIO I take my leave of you. ISABELLA Good sir, adieu. [Exeunt] MEASURE FOR MEASURE ACT II SCENE I A hall In ANGELO's house. [Enter ANGELO, ESCALUS, and a Justice, Provost, Officers, and other Attendants, behind] ANGELO We must not make a scarecrow of the law, Setting it up to fear the birds of prey, And let it keep one shape, till custom make it Their perch and not their terror. ESCALUS Ay, but yet Let us be keen, and rather cut a little, Than fall, and bruise to death. Alas, this gentleman Whom I would save, had a most noble father! Let but your honour know, Whom I believe to be most strait in virtue, That, in the working of your own affections, Had time cohered with place or place with wishing, Or that the resolute acting of your blood Could have attain'd the effect of your own purpose, Whether you had not sometime in your life Err'd in this point which now you censure him, And pull'd the law upon you. ANGELO 'Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus, Another thing to fall. I not deny, The jury, passing on the prisoner's life, May in the sworn twelve have a thief or two Guiltier than him they try. What's open made to justice, That justice seizes: what know the laws That thieves do pass on thieves? 'Tis very pregnant, The jewel that we find, we stoop and take't Because we see it; but what we do not see We tread upon, and never think of it. You may not so extenuate his offence For I have had such faults; but rather tell me, When I, that censure him, do so offend, Let mine own judgment pattern out my death, And nothing come in partial. Sir, he must die. ESCALUS Be it as your wisdom will. ANGELO Where is the provost? Provost Here, if it like your honour. ANGELO See that Claudio Be executed by nine to-morrow morning: Bring him his confessor, let him be prepared; For that's the utmost of his pilgrimage. [Exit Provost] ESCALUS [Aside] Well, heaven forgive him! and forgive us all! Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall: Some run from brakes of ice, and answer none: And some condemned for a fault alone. [Enter ELBOW, and Officers with FROTH and POMPEY] ELBOW Come, bring them away: if these be good people in a commonweal that do nothing but use their abuses in common houses, I know no law: bring them away. ANGELO How now, sir! What's your name? and what's the matter? ELBOW If it Please your honour, I am the poor duke's constable, and my name is Elbow: I do lean upon justice, sir, and do bring in here before your good honour two notorious benefactors. ANGELO Benefactors? Well; what benefactors are they? are they not malefactors? ELBOW If it? please your honour, I know not well what they are: but precise villains they are, that I am sure of; and void of all profanation in the world that good Christians ought to have. ESCALUS This comes off well; here's a wise officer. ANGELO Go to: what quality are they of? Elbow is your name? why dost thou not speak, Elbow? POMPEY He cannot, sir; he's out at elbow. ANGELO What are you, sir? ELBOW He, sir! a tapster, sir; parcel-bawd; one that serves a bad woman; whose house, sir, was, as they say, plucked down in the suburbs; and now she professes a hot-house, which, I think, is a very ill house too. ESCALUS How know you that? ELBOW My wife, sir, whom I detest before heaven and your honour,-- ESCALUS How? thy wife? ELBOW Ay, sir; whom, I thank heaven, is an honest woman,-- ESCALUS Dost thou detest her therefore? ELBOW I say, sir, I will detest myself also, as well as she, that this house, if it be not a bawd's house, it is pity of her life, for it is a naughty house. ESCALUS How dost thou know that, constable? ELBOW Marry, sir, by my wife; who, if she had been a woman cardinally given, might have been accused in fornication, adultery, and all uncleanliness there. ESCALUS By the woman's means? ELBOW Ay, sir, by Mistress Overdone's means: but as she spit in his face, so she defied him. POMPEY Sir, if it please your honour, this is not so. ELBOW Prove it before these varlets here, thou honourable man; prove it. ESCALUS Do you hear how he misplaces? POMPEY Sir, she came in great with child; and longing, saving your honour's reverence, for stewed prunes; sir, we had but two in the house, which at that very distant time stood, as it were, in a fruit-dish, a dish of some three-pence; your honours have seen such dishes; they are not China dishes, but very good dishes,-- ESCALUS Go to, go to: no matter for the dish, sir. POMPEY No, indeed, sir, not of a pin; you are therein in the right: but to the point. As I say, this Mistress Elbow, being, as I say, with child, and being great-bellied, and longing, as I said, for prunes; and having but two in the dish, as I said, Master Froth here, this very man, having eaten the rest, as I said, and, as I say, paying for them very honestly; for, as you know, Master Froth, I could not give you three-pence again. FROTH No, indeed. POMPEY Very well: you being then, if you be remembered, cracking the stones of the foresaid prunes,-- FROTH Ay, so I did indeed. POMPEY Why, very well; I telling you then, if you be remembered, that such a one and such a one were past cure of the thing you wot of, unless they kept very good diet, as I told you,-- FROTH All this is true. POMPEY Why, very well, then,-- ESCALUS Come, you are a tedious fool: to the purpose. What was done to Elbow's wife, that he hath cause to complain of? Come me to what was done to her. POMPEY Sir, your honour cannot come to that yet. ESCALUS No, sir, nor I mean it not. POMPEY Sir, but you shall come to it, by your honour's leave. And, I beseech you, look into Master Froth here, sir; a man of four-score pound a year; whose father died at Hallowmas: was't not at Hallowmas, Master Froth? FROTH All-hallond eve. POMPEY Why, very well; I hope here be truths. He, sir, sitting, as I say, in a lower chair, sir; 'twas in the Bunch of Grapes, where indeed you have a delight to sit, have you not? FROTH I have so; because it is an open room and good for winter. POMPEY Why, very well, then; I hope here be truths. ANGELO This will last out a night in Russia, When nights are longest there: I'll take my leave. And leave you to the hearing of the cause; Hoping you'll find good cause to whip them all. ESCALUS I think no less. Good morrow to your lordship. [Exit ANGELO] Now, sir, come on: what was done to Elbow's wife, once more? POMPEY Once, sir? there was nothing done to her once. ELBOW I beseech you, sir, ask him what this man did to my wife. POMPEY I beseech your honour, ask me. ESCALUS Well, sir; what did this gentleman to her? POMPEY I beseech you, sir, look in this gentleman's face. Good Master Froth, look upon his honour; 'tis for a good purpose. Doth your honour mark his face? ESCALUS Ay, sir, very well. POMPEY Nay; I beseech you, mark it well. ESCALUS Well, I do so. POMPEY Doth your honour see any harm in his face? ESCALUS Why, no. POMPEY I'll be supposed upon a book, his face is the worst thing about him. Good, then; if his face be the worst thing about him, how could Master Froth do the constable's wife any harm? I would know that of your honour. ESCALUS He's in the right. Constable, what say you to it? ELBOW First, an it like you, the house is a respected house; next, this is a respected fellow; and his mistress is a respected woman. POMPEY By this hand, sir, his wife is a more respected person than any of us all. ELBOW Varlet, thou liest; thou liest, wicked varlet! the time has yet to come that she was ever respected with man, woman, or child. POMPEY Sir, she was respected with him before he married with her. ESCALUS Which is the wiser here? Justice or Iniquity? Is this true? ELBOW O thou caitiff! O thou varlet! O thou wicked Hannibal! I respected with her before I was married to her! If ever I was respected with her, or she with me, let not your worship think me the poor duke's officer. Prove this, thou wicked Hannibal, or I'll have mine action of battery on thee. ESCALUS If he took you a box o' the ear, you might have your action of slander too. ELBOW Marry, I thank your good worship for it. What is't your worship's pleasure I shall do with this wicked caitiff? ESCALUS Truly, officer, because he hath some offences in him that thou wouldst discover if thou couldst, let him continue in his courses till thou knowest what they are. ELBOW Marry, I thank your worship for it. Thou seest, thou wicked varlet, now, what's come upon thee: thou art to continue now, thou varlet; thou art to continue. ESCALUS Where were you born, friend? FROTH Here in Vienna, sir. ESCALUS Are you of fourscore pounds a year? FROTH Yes, an't please you, sir. ESCALUS So. What trade are you of, sir? POMPHEY Tapster; a poor widow's tapster. ESCALUS Your mistress' name? POMPHEY Mistress Overdone. ESCALUS Hath she had any more than one husband? POMPEY Nine, sir; Overdone by the last. ESCALUS Nine! Come hither to me, Master Froth. Master Froth, I would not have you acquainted with tapsters: they will draw you, Master Froth, and you will hang them. Get you gone, and let me hear no more of you. FROTH I thank your worship. For mine own part, I never come into any room in a tap-house, but I am drawn in. ESCALUS Well, no more of it, Master Froth: farewell. [Exit FROTH] Come you hither to me, Master tapster. What's your name, Master tapster? POMPEY Pompey. ESCALUS What else? POMPEY Bum, sir. ESCALUS Troth, and your bum is the greatest thing about you; so that in the beastliest sense you are Pompey the Great. Pompey, you are partly a bawd, Pompey, howsoever you colour it in being a tapster, are you not? come, tell me true: it shall be the better for you. POMPEY Truly, sir, I am a poor fellow that would live. ESCALUS How would you live, Pompey? by being a bawd? What do you think of the trade, Pompey? is it a lawful trade? POMPEY If the law would allow it, sir. ESCALUS But the law will not allow it, Pompey; nor it shall not be allowed in Vienna. POMPEY Does your worship mean to geld and splay all the youth of the city? ESCALUS No, Pompey. POMPEY Truly, sir, in my poor opinion, they will to't then. If your worship will take order for the drabs and the knaves, you need not to fear the bawds. ESCALUS There are pretty orders beginning, I can tell you: it is but heading and hanging. POMPEY If you head and hang all that offend that way but for ten year together, you'll be glad to give out a commission for more heads: if this law hold in Vienna ten year, I'll rent the fairest house in it after three-pence a bay: if you live to see this come to pass, say Pompey told you so. ESCALUS Thank you, good Pompey; and, in requital of your prophecy, hark you: I advise you, let me not find you before me again upon any complaint whatsoever; no, not for dwelling where you do: if I do, Pompey, I shall beat you to your tent, and prove a shrewd Caesar to you; in plain dealing, Pompey, I shall have you whipt: so, for this time, Pompey, fare you well. POMPEY I thank your worship for your good counsel: [Aside] but I shall follow it as the flesh and fortune shall better determine. Whip me? No, no; let carman whip his jade: The valiant heart is not whipt out of his trade. [Exit] ESCALUS Come hither to me, Master Elbow; come hither, Master constable. How long have you been in this place of constable? ELBOW Seven year and a half, sir. ESCALUS I thought, by your readiness in the office, you had continued in it some time. You say, seven years together? ELBOW And a half, sir. ESCALUS Alas, it hath been great pains to you. They do you wrong to put you so oft upon 't: are there not men in your ward sufficient to serve it? ELBOW Faith, sir, few of any wit in such matters: as they are chosen, they are glad to choose me for them; I do it for some piece of money, and go through with all. ESCALUS Look you bring me in the names of some six or seven, the most sufficient of your parish. ELBOW To your worship's house, sir? ESCALUS To my house. Fare you well. [Exit ELBOW] What's o'clock, think you? Justice Eleven, sir. ESCALUS I pray you home to dinner with me. Justice I humbly thank you. ESCALUS It grieves me for the death of Claudio; But there's no remedy. Justice Lord Angelo is severe. ESCALUS It is but needful: Mercy is not itself, that oft looks so; Pardon is still the nurse of second woe: But yet,--poor Claudio! There is no remedy. Come, sir. [Exeunt] MEASURE FOR MEASURE ACT II SCENE II Another room in the same. [Enter Provost and a Servant] Servant He's hearing of a cause; he will come straight I'll tell him of you. Provost Pray you, do. [Exit Servant] I'll know His pleasure; may be he will relent. Alas, He hath but as offended in a dream! All sects, all ages smack of this vice; and he To die for't! [Enter ANGELO] ANGELO Now, what's the matter. Provost? Provost Is it your will Claudio shall die tomorrow? ANGELO Did not I tell thee yea? hadst thou not order? Why dost thou ask again? Provost Lest I might be too rash: Under your good correction, I have seen, When, after execution, judgment hath Repented o'er his doom. ANGELO Go to; let that be mine: Do you your office, or give up your place, And you shall well be spared. Provost I crave your honour's pardon. What shall be done, sir, with the groaning Juliet? She's very near her hour. ANGELO Dispose of her To some more fitter place, and that with speed. [Re-enter Servant] Servant Here is the sister of the man condemn'd Desires access to you. ANGELO Hath he a sister? Provost Ay, my good lord; a very virtuous maid, And to be shortly of a sisterhood, If not already. ANGELO Well, let her be admitted. [Exit Servant] See you the fornicatress be removed: Let have needful, but not lavish, means; There shall be order for't. [Enter ISABELLA and LUCIO] Provost God save your honour! ANGELO Stay a little while. [To ISABELLA] You're welcome: what's your will? ISABELLA I am a woeful suitor to your honour, Please but your honour hear me. ANGELO Well; what's your suit? ISABELLA There is a vice that most I do abhor, And most desire should meet the blow of justice; For which I would not plead, but that I must; For which I must not plead, but that I am At war 'twixt will and will not. ANGELO Well; the matter? ISABELLA I have a brother is condemn'd to die: I do beseech you, let it be his fault, And not my brother. Provost [Aside] Heaven give thee moving graces! ANGELO Condemn the fault and not the actor of it? Why, every fault's condemn'd ere it be done: Mine were the very cipher of a function, To fine the faults whose fine stands in record, And let go by the actor. ISABELLA O just but severe law! I had a brother, then. Heaven keep your honour! LUCIO [Aside to ISABELLA] Give't not o'er so: to him again, entreat him; Kneel down before him, hang upon his gown: You are too cold; if you should need a pin, You could not with more tame a tongue desire it: To him, I say! ISABELLA Must he needs die? ANGELO Maiden, no remedy. ISABELLA Yes; I do think that you might pardon him, And neither heaven nor man grieve at the mercy. ANGELO I will not do't. ISABELLA But can you, if you would? ANGELO Look, what I will not, that I cannot do. ISABELLA But might you do't, and do the world no wrong, If so your heart were touch'd with that remorse As mine is to him? ANGELO He's sentenced; 'tis too late. LUCIO [Aside to ISABELLA] You are too cold. ISABELLA Too late? why, no; I, that do speak a word. May call it back again. Well, believe this, No ceremony that to great ones 'longs, Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword, The marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe, Become them with one half so good a grace As mercy does. If he had been as you and you as he, You would have slipt like him; but he, like you, Would not have been so stern. ANGELO Pray you, be gone. ISABELLA I would to heaven I had your potency, And you were Isabel! should it then be thus? No; I would tell what 'twere to be a judge, And what a prisoner. LUCIO [Aside to ISABELLA] Ay, touch him; there's the vein. ANGELO Your brother is a forfeit of the law, And you but waste your words. ISABELLA Alas, alas! Why, all the souls that were were forfeit once; And He that might the vantage best have took Found out the remedy. How would you be, If He, which is the top of judgment, should But judge you as you are? O, think on that; And mercy then will breathe within your lips, Like man new made. ANGELO Be you content, fair maid; It is the law, not I condemn your brother: Were he my kinsman, brother, or my son, It should be thus with him: he must die tomorrow. ISABELLA To-morrow! O, that's sudden! Spare him, spare him! He's not prepared for death. Even for our kitchens We kill the fowl of season: shall we serve heaven With less respect than we do minister To our gross selves? Good, good my lord, bethink you; Who is it that hath died for this offence? There's many have committed it. LUCIO [Aside to ISABELLA] Ay, well said. ANGELO The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept: Those many had not dared to do that evil, If the first that did the edict infringe Had answer'd for his deed: now 'tis awake Takes note of what is done; and, like a prophet, Looks in a glass, that shows what future evils, Either new, or by remissness new-conceived, And so in progress to be hatch'd and born, Are now to have no successive degrees, But, ere they live, to end. ISABELLA Yet show some pity. ANGELO I show it most of all when I show justice; For then I pity those I do not know, Which a dismiss'd offence would after gall; And do him right that, answering one foul wrong, Lives not to act another. Be satisfied; Your brother dies to-morrow; be content. ISABELLA So you must be the first that gives this sentence, And he, that suffer's. O, it is excellent To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous To use it like a giant. LUCIO [Aside to ISABELLA] That's well said. ISABELLA Could great men thunder As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet, For every pelting, petty officer Would use his heaven for thunder; Nothing but thunder! Merciful Heaven, Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt Split'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak Than the soft myrtle: but man, proud man, Drest in a little brief authority, Most ignorant of what he's most assured, His glassy essence, like an angry ape, Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven As make the angels weep; who, with our spleens, Would all themselves laugh mortal. LUCIO [Aside to ISABELLA] O, to him, to him, wench! he will relent; He's coming; I perceive 't. Provost [Aside] Pray heaven she win him! ISABELLA We cannot weigh our brother with ourself: Great men may jest with saints; 'tis wit in them, But in the less foul profanation. LUCIO Thou'rt i' the right, girl; more o, that. ISABELLA That in the captain's but a choleric word, Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy. LUCIO [Aside to ISABELLA] Art avised o' that? more on 't. ANGELO Why do you put these sayings upon me? ISABELLA Because authority, though it err like others, Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself, That skins the vice o' the top. Go to your bosom; Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know That's like my brother's fault: if it confess A natural guiltiness such as is his, Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue Against my brother's life. ANGELO [Aside] She speaks, and 'tis Such sense, that my sense breeds with it. Fare you well. ISABELLA Gentle my lord, turn back. ANGELO I will bethink me: come again tomorrow. ISABELLA Hark how I'll bribe you: good my lord, turn back. ANGELO How! bribe me? ISABELLA Ay, with such gifts that heaven shall share with you. LUCIO [Aside to ISABELLA] You had marr'd all else. ISABELLA Not with fond shekels of the tested gold, Or stones whose rates are either rich or poor As fancy values them; but with true prayers That shall be up at heaven and enter there Ere sun-rise, prayers from preserved souls, From fasting maids whose minds are dedicate To nothing temporal. ANGELO Well; come to me to-morrow. LUCIO [Aside to ISABELLA] Go to; 'tis well; away! ISABELLA Heaven keep your honour safe! ANGELO [Aside] Amen: For I am that way going to temptation, Where prayers cross. ISABELLA At what hour to-morrow Shall I attend your lordship? ANGELO At any time 'fore noon. ISABELLA 'Save your honour! [Exeunt ISABELLA, LUCIO, and Provost] ANGELO From thee, even from thy virtue! What's this, what's this? Is this her fault or mine? The tempter or the tempted, who sins most? Ha! Not she: nor doth she tempt: but it is I That, lying by the violet in the sun, Do as the carrion does, not as the flower, Corrupt with virtuous season. Can it be That modesty may more betray our sense Than woman's lightness? Having waste ground enough, Shall we desire to raze the sanctuary And pitch our evils there? O, fie, fie, fie! What dost thou, or what art thou, Angelo? Dost thou desire her foully for those things That make her good? O, let her brother live! Thieves for their robbery have authority When judges steal themselves. What, do I love her, That I desire to hear her speak again, And feast upon her eyes? What is't I dream on? O cunning enemy, that, to catch a saint, With saints dost bait thy hook! Most dangerous Is that temptation that doth goad us on To sin in loving virtue: never could the strumpet, With all her double vigour, art and nature, Once stir my temper; but this virtuous maid Subdues me quite. Even till now, When men were fond, I smiled and wonder'd how. [Exit] MEASURE FOR MEASURE ACT II SCENE III A room in a prison. [Enter, severally, DUKE VINCENTIO disguised as a friar, and Provost] DUKE VINCENTIO Hail to you, provost! so I think you are. Provost I am the provost. What's your will, good friar? DUKE VINCENTIO Bound by my charity and my blest order, I come to visit the afflicted spirits Here in the prison. Do me the common right To let me see them and to make me know The nature of their crimes, that I may minister To them accordingly. Provost I would do more than that, if more were needful. [Enter JULIET] Look, here comes one: a gentlewoman of mine, Who, falling in the flaws of her own youth, Hath blister'd her report: she is with child; And he that got it, sentenced; a young man More fit to do another such offence Than die for this. DUKE VINCENTIO When must he die? Provost As I do think, to-morrow. I have provided for you: stay awhile, [To JULIET] And you shall be conducted. DUKE VINCENTIO Repent you, fair one, of the sin you carry? JULIET I do; and bear the shame most patiently. DUKE VINCENTIO I'll teach you how you shall arraign your conscience, And try your penitence, if it be sound, Or hollowly put on. JULIET I'll gladly learn. DUKE VINCENTIO Love you the man that wrong'd you? JULIET Yes, as I love the woman that wrong'd him. DUKE VINCENTIO So then it seems your most offenceful act Was mutually committed? JULIET Mutually. DUKE VINCENTIO Then was your sin of heavier kind than his. JULIET I do confess it, and repent it, father. DUKE VINCENTIO 'Tis meet so, daughter: but lest you do repent, As that the sin hath brought you to this shame, Which sorrow is always towards ourselves, not heaven, Showing we would not spare heaven as we love it, But as we stand in fear,-- JULIET I do repent me, as it is an evil, And take the shame with joy. DUKE VINCENTIO There rest. Your partner, as I hear, must die to-morrow, And I am going with instruction to him. Grace go with you, Benedicite! [Exit] JULIET Must die to-morrow! O injurious love, That respites me a life, whose very comfort Is still a dying horror! Provost 'Tis pity of him. [Exeunt] MEASURE FOR MEASURE ACT II SCENE IV A room in ANGELO's house. [Enter ANGELO] ANGELO When I would pray and think, I think and pray To several subjects. Heaven hath my empty words; Whilst my invention, hearing not my tongue, Anchors on Isabel: Heaven in my mouth, As if I did but only chew his name; And in my heart the strong and swelling evil Of my conception. The state, whereon I studied Is like a good thing, being often read, Grown fear'd and tedious; yea, my gravity, Wherein--let no man hear me--I take pride, Could I with boot change for an idle plume, Which the air beats for vain. O place, O form, How often dost thou with thy case, thy habit, Wrench awe from fools and tie the wiser souls To thy false seeming! Blood, thou art blood: Let's write good angel on the devil's horn: 'Tis not the devil's crest. [Enter a Servant] How now! who's there? Servant One Isabel, a sister, desires access to you. ANGELO Teach her the way. [Exit Servant] O heavens! Why does my blood thus muster to my heart, Making both it unable for itself, And dispossessing all my other parts Of necessary fitness? So play the foolish throngs with one that swoons; Come all to help him, and so stop the air By which he should revive: and even so The general, subject to a well-wish'd king, Quit their own part, and in obsequious fondness Crowd to his presence, where their untaught love Must needs appear offence. [Enter ISABELLA] How now, fair maid? ISABELLA I am come to know your pleasure. ANGELO That you might know it, would much better please me Than to demand what 'tis. Your brother cannot live. ISABELLA Even so. Heaven keep your honour! ANGELO Yet may he live awhile; and, it may be, As long as you or I yet he must die. ISABELLA Under your sentence? ANGELO Yea. ISABELLA When, I beseech you? that in his reprieve, Longer or shorter, he may be so fitted That his soul sicken not. ANGELO Ha! fie, these filthy vices! It were as good To pardon him that hath from nature stolen A man already made, as to remit Their saucy sweetness that do coin heaven's image In stamps that are forbid: 'tis all as easy Falsely to take away a life true made As to put metal in restrained means To make a false one. ISABELLA 'Tis set down so in heaven, but not in earth. ANGELO Say you so? then I shall pose you quickly. Which had you rather, that the most just law Now took your brother's life; or, to redeem him, Give up your body to such sweet uncleanness As she that he hath stain'd? ISABELLA Sir, believe this, I had rather give my body than my soul. ANGELO I talk not of your soul: our compell'd sins Stand more for number than for accompt. ISABELLA How say you? ANGELO Nay, I'll not warrant that; for I can speak Against the thing I say. Answer to this: I, now the voice of the recorded law, Pronounce a sentence on your brother's life: Might there not be a charity in sin To save this brother's life? ISABELLA Please you to do't, I'll take it as a peril to my soul, It is no sin at all, but charity. ANGELO Pleased you to do't at peril of your soul, Were equal poise of sin and charity. ISABELLA That I do beg his life, if it be sin, Heaven let me bear it! you granting of my suit, If that be sin, I'll make it my morn prayer To have it added to the faults of mine, And nothing of your answer. ANGELO Nay, but hear me. Your sense pursues not mine: either you are ignorant, Or seem so craftily; and that's not good. ISABELLA Let me be ignorant, and in nothing good, But graciously to know I am no better. ANGELO Thus wisdom wishes to appear most bright When it doth tax itself; as these black masks Proclaim an enshield beauty ten times louder Than beauty could, display'd. But mark me; To be received plain, I'll speak more gross: Your brother is to die. ISABELLA So. ANGELO And his offence is so, as it appears, Accountant to the law upon that pain. ISABELLA True. ANGELO Admit no other way to save his life,-- As I subscribe not that, nor any other, But in the loss of question,--that you, his sister, Finding yourself desired of such a person, Whose credit with the judge, or own great place, Could fetch your brother from the manacles Of the all-building law; and that there were No earthly mean to save him, but that either You must lay down the treasures of your body To this supposed, or else to let him suffer; What would you do? ISABELLA As much for my poor brother as myself: That is, were I under the terms of death, The impression of keen whips I'ld wear as rubies, And strip myself to death, as to a bed That longing have been sick for, ere I'ld yield My body up to shame. ANGELO Then must your brother die. ISABELLA And 'twere the cheaper way: Better it were a brother died at once, Than that a sister, by redeeming him, Should die for ever. ANGELO Were not you then as cruel as the sentence That you have slander'd so? ISABELLA Ignomy in ransom and free pardon Are of two houses: lawful mercy Is nothing kin to foul redemption. ANGELO You seem'd of late to make the law a tyrant; And rather proved the sliding of your brother A merriment than a vice. ISABELLA O, pardon me, my lord; it oft falls out, To have what we would have, we speak not what we mean: I something do excuse the thing I hate, For his advantage that I dearly love. ANGELO We are all frail. ISABELLA Else let my brother die, If not a feodary, but only he Owe and succeed thy weakness. ANGELO Nay, women are frail too. ISABELLA Ay, as the glasses where they view themselves; Which are as easy broke as they make forms. Women! Help Heaven! men their creation mar In profiting by them. Nay, call us ten times frail; For we are soft as our complexions are, And credulous to false prints. ANGELO I think it well: And from this testimony of your own sex,-- Since I suppose we are made to be no stronger Than faults may shake our frames,--let me be bold; I do arrest your words. Be that you are, That is, a woman; if you be more, you're none; If you be one, as you are well express'd By all external warrants, show it now, By putting on the destined livery. ISABELLA I have no tongue but one: gentle my lord, Let me entreat you speak the former language. ANGELO Plainly conceive, I love you. ISABELLA My brother did love Juliet, And you tell me that he shall die for it. ANGELO He shall not, Isabel, if you give me love. ISABELLA I know your virtue hath a licence in't, Which seems a little fouler than it is, To pluck on others. ANGELO Believe me, on mine honour, My words express my purpose. ISABELLA Ha! little honour to be much believed, And most pernicious purpose! Seeming, seeming! I will proclaim thee, Angelo; look for't: Sign me a present pardon for my brother, Or with an outstretch'd throat I'll tell the world aloud What man thou art. ANGELO Who will believe thee, Isabel? My unsoil'd name, the austereness of my life, My vouch against you, and my place i' the state, Will so your accusation overweigh, That you shall stifle in your own report And smell of calumny. I have begun, And now I give my sensual race the rein: Fit thy consent to my sharp appetite; Lay by all nicety and prolixious blushes, That banish what they sue for; redeem thy brother By yielding up thy body to my will; Or else he must not only die the death, But thy unkindness shall his death draw out To lingering sufferance. Answer me to-morrow, Or, by the affection that now guides me most, I'll prove a tyrant to him. As for you, Say what you can, my false o'erweighs your true. [Exit] ISABELLA To whom should I complain? Did I tell this, Who would believe me? O perilous mouths, That bear in them one and the self-same tongue, Either of condemnation or approof; Bidding the law make court'sy to their will: Hooking both right and wrong to the appetite, To follow as it draws! I'll to my brother: Though he hath fallen by prompture of the blood, Yet hath he in him such a mind of honour. That, had he twenty heads to tender down On twenty bloody blocks, he'ld yield them up, Before his sister should her body stoop To such abhorr'd pollution. Then, Isabel, live chaste, and, brother, die: More than our brother is our chastity. I'll tell him yet of Angelo's request, And fit his mind to death, for his soul's rest. [Exit] MEASURE FOR MEASURE ACT III SCENE I A room in the prison. [Enter DUKE VINCENTIO disguised as before, CLAUDIO, and Provost] DUKE VINCENTIO So then you hope of pardon from Lord Angelo? CLAUDIO The miserable have no other medicine But only hope: I've hope to live, and am prepared to die. DUKE VINCENTIO Be absolute for death; either death or life Shall thereby be the sweeter. Reason thus with life: If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing That none but fools would keep: a breath thou art, Servile to all the skyey influences, That dost this habitation, where thou keep'st, Hourly afflict: merely, thou art death's fool; For him thou labour'st by thy flight to shun And yet runn'st toward him still. Thou art not noble; For all the accommodations that thou bear'st Are nursed by baseness. Thou'rt by no means valiant; For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork Of a poor worm. Thy best of rest is sleep, And that thou oft provokest; yet grossly fear'st Thy death, which is no more. Thou art not thyself; For thou exist'st on many a thousand grains That issue out of dust. Happy thou art not; For what thou hast not, still thou strivest to get, And what thou hast, forget'st. Thou art not certain; For thy complexion shifts to strange effects, After the moon. If thou art rich, thou'rt poor; For, like an ass whose back with ingots bows, Thou bear's thy heavy riches but a journey, And death unloads thee. Friend hast thou none; For thine own bowels, which do call thee sire, The mere effusion of thy proper loins, Do curse the gout, serpigo, and the rheum, For ending thee no sooner. Thou hast nor youth nor age, But, as it were, an after-dinner's sleep, Dreaming on both; for all thy blessed youth Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms Of palsied eld; and when thou art old and rich, Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty, To make thy riches pleasant. What's yet in this That bears the name of life? Yet in this life Lie hid moe thousand deaths: yet death we fear, That makes these odds all even. CLAUDIO I humbly thank you. To sue to live, I find I seek to die; And, seeking death, find life: let it come on. ISABELLA [Within] What, ho! Peace here; grace and good company! Provost Who's there? come in: the wish deserves a welcome. DUKE VINCENTIO Dear sir, ere long I'll visit you again. CLAUDIO Most holy sir, I thank you. [Enter ISABELLA] ISABELLA My business is a word or two with Claudio. Provost And very welcome. Look, signior, here's your sister. DUKE VINCENTIO Provost, a word with you. Provost As many as you please. DUKE VINCENTIO Bring me to hear them speak, where I may be concealed. [Exeunt DUKE VINCENTIO and Provost] CLAUDIO Now, sister, what's the comfort? ISABELLA Why, As all comforts are; most good, most good indeed. Lord Angelo, having affairs to heaven, Intends you for his swift ambassador, Where you shall be an everlasting leiger: Therefore your best appointment make with speed; To-morrow you set on. CLAUDIO Is there no remedy? ISABELLA None, but such remedy as, to save a head, To cleave a heart in twain. CLAUDIO But is there any? ISABELLA Yes, brother, you may live: There is a devilish mercy in the judge, If you'll implore it, that will free your life, But fetter you till death. CLAUDIO Perpetual durance? ISABELLA Ay, just; perpetual durance, a restraint, Though all the world's vastidity you had, To a determined scope. CLAUDIO But in what nature? ISABELLA In such a one as, you consenting to't, Would bark your honour from that trunk you bear, And leave you naked. CLAUDIO Let me know the point. ISABELLA O, I do fear thee, Claudio; and I quake, Lest thou a feverous life shouldst entertain, And six or seven winters more respect Than a perpetual honour. Darest thou die? The sense of death is most in apprehension; And the poor beetle, that we tread upon, In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great As when a giant dies. CLAUDIO Why give you me this shame? Think you I can a resolution fetch From flowery tenderness? If I must die, I will encounter darkness as a bride, And hug it in mine arms. ISABELLA There spake my brother; there my father's grave Did utter forth a voice. Yes, thou must die: Thou art too noble to conserve a life In base appliances. This outward-sainted deputy, Whose settled visage and deliberate word Nips youth i' the head and follies doth emmew As falcon doth the fowl, is yet a devil His filth within being cast, he would appear A pond as deep as hell. CLAUDIO The prenzie Angelo! ISABELLA O, 'tis the cunning livery of hell, The damned'st body to invest and cover In prenzie guards! Dost thou think, Claudio? If I would yield him my virginity, Thou mightst be freed. CLAUDIO O heavens! it cannot be. ISABELLA Yes, he would give't thee, from this rank offence, So to offend him still. This night's the time That I should do what I abhor to name, Or else thou diest to-morrow. CLAUDIO Thou shalt not do't. ISABELLA O, were it but my life, I'ld throw it down for your deliverance As frankly as a pin. CLAUDIO Thanks, dear Isabel. ISABELLA Be ready, Claudio, for your death tomorrow. CLAUDIO Yes. Has he affections in him, That thus can make him bite the law by the nose, When he would force it? Sure, it is no sin, Or of the deadly seven, it is the least. ISABELLA Which is the least? CLAUDIO If it were damnable, he being so wise, Why would he for the momentary trick Be perdurably fined? O Isabel! ISABELLA What says my brother? CLAUDIO Death is a fearful thing. ISABELLA And shamed life a hateful. CLAUDIO Ay, but to die, and go we know not where; To lie in cold obstruction and to rot; This sensible warm motion to become A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice; To be imprison'd in the viewless winds, And blown with restless violence round about The pendent world; or to be worse than worst Of those that lawless and incertain thought Imagine howling: 'tis too horrible! The weariest and most loathed worldly life That age, ache, penury and imprisonment Can lay on nature is a paradise To what we fear of death. ISABELLA Alas, alas! CLAUDIO Sweet sister, let me live: What sin you do to save a brother's life, Nature dispenses with the deed so far That it becomes a virtue. ISABELLA O you beast! O faithless coward! O dishonest wretch! Wilt thou be made a man out of my vice? Is't not a kind of incest, to take life From thine own sister's shame? What should I think? Heaven shield my mother play'd my father fair! For such a warped slip of wilderness Ne'er issued from his blood. Take my defiance! Die, perish! Might but my bending down Reprieve thee from thy fate, it should proceed: I'll pray a thousand prayers for thy death, No word to save thee. CLAUDIO Nay, hear me, Isabel. ISABELLA O, fie, fie, fie! Thy sin's not accidental, but a trade. Mercy to thee would prove itself a bawd: 'Tis best thou diest quickly. CLAUDIO O hear me, Isabella! [Re-enter DUKE VINCENTIO] DUKE VINCENTIO Vouchsafe a word, young sister, but one word. ISABELLA What is your will? DUKE VINCENTIO Might you dispense with your leisure, I would by and by have some speech with you: the satisfaction I would require is likewise your own benefit. ISABELLA I have no superfluous leisure; my stay must be stolen out of other affairs; but I will attend you awhile. [Walks apart] DUKE VINCENTIO Son, I have overheard what hath passed between you and your sister. Angelo had never the purpose to corrupt her; only he hath made an essay of her virtue to practise his judgment with the disposition of natures: she, having the truth of honour in her, hath made him that gracious denial which he is most glad to receive. I am confessor to Angelo, and I know this to be true; therefore prepare yourself to death: do not satisfy your resolution with hopes that are fallible: tomorrow you must die; go to your knees and make ready. CLAUDIO Let me ask my sister pardon. I am so out of love with life that I will sue to be rid of it. DUKE VINCENTIO Hold you there: farewell. [Exit CLAUDIO] Provost, a word with you! [Re-enter Provost] Provost What's your will, father DUKE VINCENTIO That now you are come, you will be gone. Leave me awhile with the maid: my mind promises with my habit no loss shall touch her by my company. Provost In good time. [Exit Provost. ISABELLA comes forward] DUKE VINCENTIO The hand that hath made you fair hath made you good: the goodness that is cheap in beauty makes beauty brief in goodness; but grace, being the soul of your complexion, shall keep the body of it ever fair. The assault that Angelo hath made to you, fortune hath conveyed to my understanding; and, but that frailty hath examples for his falling, I should wonder at Angelo. How will you do to content this substitute, and to save your brother? ISABELLA I am now going to resolve him: I had rather my brother die by the law than my son should be unlawfully born. But, O, how much is the good duke deceived in Angelo! If ever he return and I can speak to him, I will open my lips in vain, or discover his government. DUKE VINCENTIO That shall not be much amiss: Yet, as the matter now stands, he will avoid your accusation; he made trial of you only. Therefore fasten your ear on my advisings: to the love I have in doing good a remedy presents itself. I do make myself believe that you may most uprighteously do a poor wronged lady a merited benefit; redeem your brother from the angry law; do no stain to your own gracious person; and much please the absent duke, if peradventure he shall ever return to have hearing of this business. ISABELLA Let me hear you speak farther. I have spirit to do anything that appears not foul in the truth of my spirit. DUKE VINCENTIO Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful. Have you not heard speak of Mariana, the sister of Frederick the great soldier who miscarried at sea? ISABELLA I have heard of the lady, and good words went with her name. DUKE VINCENTIO She should this Angelo have married; was affianced to her by oath, and the nuptial appointed: between which time of the contract and limit of the solemnity, her brother Frederick was wrecked at sea, having in that perished vessel the dowry of his sister. But mark how heavily this befell to the poor gentlewoman: there she lost a noble and renowned brother, in his love toward her ever most kind and natural; with him, the portion and sinew of her fortune, her marriage-dowry; with both, her combinate husband, this well-seeming Angelo. ISABELLA Can this be so? did Angelo so leave her? DUKE VINCENTIO Left her in her tears, and dried not one of them with his comfort; swallowed his vows whole, pretending in her discoveries of dishonour: in few, bestowed her on her own lamentation, which she yet wears for his sake; and he, a marble to her tears, is washed with them, but relents not. ISABELLA What a merit were it in death to take this poor maid from the world! What corruption in this life, that it will let this man live! But how out of this can she avail? DUKE VINCENTIO It is a rupture that you may easily heal: and the cure of it not only saves your brother, but keeps you from dishonour in doing it. ISABELLA Show me how, good father. DUKE VINCENTIO This forenamed maid hath yet in her the continuance of her first affection: his unjust unkindness, that in all reason should have quenched her love, hath, like an impediment in the current, made it more violent and unruly. Go you to Angelo; answer his requiring with a plausible obedience; agree with his demands to the point; only refer yourself to this advantage, first, that your stay with him may not be long; that the time may have all shadow and silence in it; and the place answer to convenience. This being granted in course,--and now follows all,--we shall advise this wronged maid to stead up your appointment, go in your place; if the encounter acknowledge itself hereafter, it may compel him to her recompense: and here, by this, is your brother saved, your honour untainted, the poor Mariana advantaged, and the corrupt deputy scaled. The maid will I frame and make fit for his attempt. If you think well to carry this as you may, the doubleness of the benefit defends the deceit from reproof. What think you of it? ISABELLA The image of it gives me content already; and I trust it will grow to a most prosperous perfection. DUKE VINCENTIO It lies much in your holding up. Haste you speedily to Angelo: if for this night he entreat you to his bed, give him promise of satisfaction. I will presently to Saint Luke's: there, at the moated grange, resides this dejected Mariana. At that place call upon me; and dispatch with Angelo, that it may be quickly. ISABELLA I thank you for this comfort. Fare you well, good father. [Exeunt severally] MEASURE FOR MEASURE ACT III SCENE II The street before the prison. [Enter, on one side, DUKE VINCENTIO disguised as before; on the other, ELBOW, and Officers with POMPEY] ELBOW Nay, if there be no remedy for it, but that you will needs buy and sell men and women like beasts, we shall have all the world drink brown and white bastard. DUKE VINCENTIO O heavens! what stuff is here POMPEY 'Twas never merry world since, of two usuries, the merriest was put down, and the worser allowed by order of law a furred gown to keep him warm; and furred with fox and lamb-skins too, to signify, that craft, being richer than innocency, stands for the facing. ELBOW Come your way, sir. 'Bless you, good father friar. DUKE VINCENTIO And you, good brother father. What offence hath this man made you, sir? ELBOW Marry, sir, he hath offended the law: and, sir, we take him to be a thief too, sir; for we have found upon him, sir, a strange picklock, which we have sent to the deputy. DUKE VINCENTIO Fie, sirrah! a bawd, a wicked bawd! The evil that thou causest to be done, That is thy means to live. Do thou but think What 'tis to cram a maw or clothe a back From such a filthy vice: say to thyself, From their abominable and beastly touches I drink, I eat, array myself, and live. Canst thou believe thy living is a life, So stinkingly depending? Go mend, go mend. POMPEY Indeed, it does stink in some sort, sir; but yet, sir, I would prove-- DUKE VINCENTIO Nay, if the devil have given thee proofs for sin, Thou wilt prove his. Take him to prison, officer: Correction and instruction must both work Ere this rude beast will profit. ELBOW He must before the deputy, sir; he has given him warning: the deputy cannot abide a whoremaster: if he be a whoremonger, and comes before him, he were as good go a mile on his errand. DUKE VINCENTIO That we were all, as some would seem to be, From our faults, as faults from seeming, free! ELBOW His neck will come to your waist,--a cord, sir. POMPEY I spy comfort; I cry bail. Here's a gentleman and a friend of mine. [Enter LUCIO] LUCIO How now, noble Pompey! What, at the wheels of Caesar? art thou led in triumph? What, is there none of Pygmalion's images, newly made woman, to be had now, for putting the hand in the pocket and extracting it clutch'd? What reply, ha? What sayest thou to this tune, matter and method? Is't not drowned i' the last rain, ha? What sayest thou, Trot? Is the world as it was, man? Which is the way? Is it sad, and few words? or how? The trick of it? DUKE VINCENTIO Still thus, and thus; still worse! LUCIO How doth my dear morsel, thy mistress? Procures she still, ha? POMPEY Troth, sir, she hath eaten up all her beef, and she is herself in the tub. LUCIO Why, 'tis good; it is the right of it; it must be so: ever your fresh whore and your powdered bawd: an unshunned consequence; it must be so. Art going to prison, Pompey? POMPEY Yes, faith, sir. LUCIO Why, 'tis not amiss, Pompey. Farewell: go, say I sent thee thither. For debt, Pompey? or how? ELBOW For being a bawd, for being a bawd. LUCIO Well, then, imprison him: if imprisonment be the due of a bawd, why, 'tis his right: bawd is he doubtless, and of antiquity too; bawd-born. Farewell, good Pompey. Commend me to the prison, Pompey: you will turn good husband now, Pompey; you will keep the house. POMPEY I hope, sir, your good worship will be my bail. LUCIO No, indeed, will I not, Pompey; it is not the wear. I will pray, Pompey, to increase your bondage: If you take it not patiently, why, your mettle is the more. Adieu, trusty Pompey. 'Bless you, friar. DUKE VINCENTIO And you. LUCIO Does Bridget paint still, Pompey, ha? ELBOW Come your ways, sir; come. POMPEY You will not bail me, then, sir? LUCIO Then, Pompey, nor now. What news abroad, friar? what news? ELBOW Come your ways, sir; come. LUCIO Go to kennel, Pompey; go. [Exeunt ELBOW, POMPEY and Officers] What news, friar, of the duke? DUKE VINCENTIO I know none. Can you tell me of any? LUCIO Some say he is with the Emperor of Russia; other some, he is in Rome: but where is he, think you? DUKE VINCENTIO I know not where; but wheresoever, I wish him well. LUCIO It was a mad fantastical trick of him to steal from the state, and usurp the beggary he was never born to. Lord Angelo dukes it well in his absence; he puts transgression to 't. DUKE VINCENTIO He does well in 't. LUCIO A little more lenity to lechery would do no harm in him: something too crabbed that way, friar. DUKE VINCENTIO It is too general a vice, and severity must cure it. LUCIO Yes, in good sooth, the vice is of a great kindred; it is well allied: but it is impossible to extirp it quite, friar, till eating and drinking be put down. They say this Angelo was not made by man and woman after this downright way of creation: is it true, think you? DUKE VINCENTIO How should he be made, then? LUCIO Some report a sea-maid spawned him; some, that he was begot between two stock-fishes. But it is certain that when he makes water his urine is congealed ice; that I know to be true: and he is a motion generative; that's infallible. DUKE VINCENTIO You are pleasant, sir, and speak apace. LUCIO Why, what a ruthless thing is this in him, for the rebellion of a codpiece to take away the life of a man! Would the duke that is absent have done this? Ere he would have hanged a man for the getting a hundred bastards, he would have paid for the nursing a thousand: he had some feeling of the sport: he knew the service, and that instructed him to mercy. DUKE VINCENTIO I never heard the absent duke much detected for women; he was not inclined that way. LUCIO O, sir, you are deceived. DUKE VINCENTIO 'Tis not possible. LUCIO Who, not the duke? yes, your beggar of fifty; and his use was to put a ducat in her clack-dish: the duke had crotchets in him. He would be drunk too; that let me inform you. DUKE VINCENTIO You do him wrong, surely. LUCIO Sir, I was an inward of his. A shy fellow was the duke: and I believe I know the cause of his withdrawing. DUKE VINCENTIO What, I prithee, might be the cause? LUCIO No, pardon; 'tis a secret must be locked within the teeth and the lips: but this I can let you understand, the greater file of the subject held the duke to be wise. DUKE VINCENTIO Wise! why, no question but he was. LUCIO A very superficial, ignorant, unweighing fellow. DUKE VINCENTIO Either this is the envy in you, folly, or mistaking: the very stream of his life and the business he hath helmed must upon a warranted need give him a better proclamation. Let him be but testimonied in his own bringings-forth, and he shall appear to the envious a scholar, a statesman and a soldier. Therefore you speak unskilfully: or if your knowledge be more it is much darkened in your malice. LUCIO Sir, I know him, and I love him. DUKE VINCENTIO Love talks with better knowledge, and knowledge with dearer love. LUCIO Come, sir, I know what I know. DUKE VINCENTIO I can hardly believe that, since you know not what you speak. But, if ever the duke return, as our prayers are he may, let me desire you to make your answer before him. If it be honest you have spoke, you have courage to maintain it: I am bound to call upon you; and, I pray you, your name? LUCIO Sir, my name is Lucio; well known to the duke. DUKE VINCENTIO He shall know you better, sir, if I may live to report you. LUCIO I fear you not. DUKE VINCENTIO O, you hope the duke will return no more; or you imagine me too unhurtful an opposite. But indeed I can do you little harm; you'll forswear this again. LUCIO I'll be hanged first: thou art deceived in me, friar. But no more of this. Canst thou tell if Claudio die to-morrow or no? DUKE VINCENTIO Why should he die, sir? LUCIO Why? For filling a bottle with a tundish. I would the duke we talk of were returned again: the ungenitured agent will unpeople the province with continency; sparrows must not build in his house-eaves, because they are lecherous. The duke yet would have dark deeds darkly answered; he would never bring them to light: would he were returned! Marry, this Claudio is condemned for untrussing. Farewell, good friar: I prithee, pray for me. The duke, I say to thee again, would eat mutton on Fridays. He's not past it yet, and I say to thee, he would mouth with a beggar, though she smelt brown bread and garlic: say that I said so. Farewell. [Exit] DUKE VINCENTIO No might nor greatness in mortality Can censure 'scape; back-wounding calumny The whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue? But who comes here? [Enter ESCALUS, Provost, and Officers with MISTRESS OVERDONE] ESCALUS Go; away with her to prison! MISTRESS OVERDONE Good my lord, be good to me; your honour is accounted a merciful man; good my lord. ESCALUS Double and treble admonition, and still forfeit in the same kind! This would make mercy swear and play the tyrant. Provost A bawd of eleven years' continuance, may it please your honour. MISTRESS OVERDONE My lord, this is one Lucio's information against me. Mistress Kate Keepdown was with child by him in the duke's time; he promised her marriage: his child is a year and a quarter old, come Philip and Jacob: I have kept it myself; and see how he goes about to abuse me! ESCALUS That fellow is a fellow of much licence: let him be called before us. Away with her to prison! Go to; no more words. [Exeunt Officers with MISTRESS OVERDONE] Provost, my brother Angelo will not be altered; Claudio must die to-morrow: let him be furnished with divines, and have all charitable preparation. if my brother wrought by my pity, it should not be so with him. Provost So please you, this friar hath been with him, and advised him for the entertainment of death. ESCALUS Good even, good father. DUKE VINCENTIO Bliss and goodness on you! ESCALUS Of whence are you? DUKE VINCENTIO Not of this country, though my chance is now To use it for my time: I am a brother Of gracious order, late come from the See In special business from his holiness. ESCALUS What news abroad i' the world? DUKE VINCENTIO None, but that there is so great a fever on goodness, that the dissolution of it must cure it: novelty is only in request; and it is as dangerous to be aged in any kind of course, as it is virtuous to be constant in any undertaking. There is scarce truth enough alive to make societies secure; but security enough to make fellowships accurst: much upon this riddle runs the wisdom of the world. This news is old enough, yet it is every day's news. I pray you, sir, of what disposition was the duke? ESCALUS One that, above all other strifes, contended especially to know himself. DUKE VINCENTIO What pleasure was he given to? ESCALUS Rather rejoicing to see another merry, than merry at any thing which professed to make him rejoice: a gentleman of all temperance. But leave we him to his events, with a prayer they may prove prosperous; and let me desire to know how you find Claudio prepared. I am made to understand that you have lent him visitation. DUKE VINCENTIO He professes to have received no sinister measure from his judge, but most willingly humbles himself to the determination of justice: yet had he framed to himself, by the instruction of his frailty, many deceiving promises of life; which I by my good leisure have discredited to him, and now is he resolved to die. ESCALUS You have paid the heavens your function, and the prisoner the very debt of your calling. I have laboured for the poor gentleman to the extremest shore of my modesty: but my brother justice have I found so severe, that he hath forced me to tell him he is indeed Justice. DUKE VINCENTIO If his own life answer the straitness of his proceeding, it shall become him well; wherein if he chance to fail, he hath sentenced himself. ESCALUS I am going to visit the prisoner. Fare you well. DUKE VINCENTIO Peace be with you! [Exeunt ESCALUS and Provost] He who the sword of heaven will bear Should be as holy as severe; Pattern in himself to know, Grace to stand, and virtue go; More nor less to others paying Than by self-offences weighing. Shame to him whose cruel striking Kills for faults of his own liking! Twice treble shame on Angelo, To weed my vice and let his grow! O, what may man within him hide, Though angel on the outward side! How may likeness made in crimes, Making practise on the times, To draw with idle spiders' strings Most ponderous and substantial things! Craft against vice I must apply: With Angelo to-night shall lie His old betrothed but despised; So disguise shall, by the disguised, Pay with falsehood false exacting, And perform an old contracting. [Exit] MEASURE FOR MEASURE ACT IV SCENE I The moated grange at ST. LUKE's. [Enter MARIANA and a Boy] [Boy sings] Take, O, take those lips away, That so sweetly were forsworn; And those eyes, the break of day, Lights that do mislead the morn: But my kisses bring again, bring again; Seals of love, but sealed in vain, sealed in vain. MARIANA Break off thy song, and haste thee quick away: Here comes a man of comfort, whose advice Hath often still'd my brawling discontent. [Exit Boy] [Enter DUKE VINCENTIO disguised as before] I cry you mercy, sir; and well could wish You had not found me here so musical: Let me excuse me, and believe me so, My mirth it much displeased, but pleased my woe. DUKE VINCENTIO 'Tis good; though music oft hath such a charm To make bad good, and good provoke to harm. I pray, you, tell me, hath any body inquired for me here to-day? much upon this time have I promised here to meet. MARIANA You have not been inquired after: I have sat here all day. [Enter ISABELLA] DUKE VINCENTIO I do constantly believe you. The time is come even now. I shall crave your forbearance a little: may be I will call upon you anon, for some advantage to yourself. MARIANA I am always bound to you. [Exit] DUKE VINCENTIO Very well met, and well come. What is the news from this good deputy? ISABELLA He hath a garden circummured with brick, Whose western side is with a vineyard back'd; And to that vineyard is a planched gate, That makes his opening with this bigger key: This other doth command a little door Which from the vineyard to the garden leads; There have I made my promise Upon the heavy middle of the night To call upon him. DUKE VINCENTIO But shall you on your knowledge find this way? ISABELLA I have ta'en a due and wary note upon't: With whispering and most guilty diligence, In action all of precept, he did show me The way twice o'er. DUKE VINCENTIO Are there no other tokens Between you 'greed concerning her observance? ISABELLA No, none, but only a repair i' the dark; And that I have possess'd him my most stay Can be but brief; for I have made him know I have a servant comes with me along, That stays upon me, whose persuasion is I come about my brother. DUKE VINCENTIO 'Tis well borne up. I have not yet made known to Mariana A word of this. What, ho! within! come forth! [Re-enter MARIANA] I pray you, be acquainted with this maid; She comes to do you good. ISABELLA I do desire the like. DUKE VINCENTIO Do you persuade yourself that I respect you? MARIANA Good friar, I know you do, and have found it. DUKE VINCENTIO Take, then, this your companion by the hand, Who hath a story ready for your ear. I shall attend your leisure: but make haste; The vaporous night approaches. MARIANA Will't please you walk aside? [Exeunt MARIANA and ISABELLA] DUKE VINCENTIO O place and greatness! millions of false eyes Are stuck upon thee: volumes of report Run with these false and most contrarious quests Upon thy doings: thousand escapes of wit Make thee the father of their idle dreams And rack thee in their fancies. [Re-enter MARIANA and ISABELLA] Welcome, how agreed? ISABELLA She'll take the enterprise upon her, father, If you advise it. DUKE VINCENTIO It is not my consent, But my entreaty too. ISABELLA Little have you to say When you depart from him, but, soft and low, 'Remember now my brother.' MARIANA Fear me not. DUKE VINCENTIO Nor, gentle daughter, fear you not at all. He is your husband on a pre-contract: To bring you thus together, 'tis no sin, Sith that the justice of your title to him Doth flourish the deceit. Come, let us go: Our corn's to reap, for yet our tithe's to sow. [Exeunt] MEASURE FOR MEASURE ACT IV SCENE II A room in the prison. [Enter Provost and POMPEY] Provost Come hither, sirrah. Can you cut off a man's head? POMPEY If the man be a bachelor, sir, I can; but if he be a married man, he's his wife's head, and I can never cut off a woman's head. Provost Come, sir, leave me your snatches, and yield me a direct answer. To-morrow morning are to die Claudio and Barnardine. Here is in our prison a common executioner, who in his office lacks a helper: if you will take it on you to assist him, it shall redeem you from your gyves; if not, you shall have your full time of imprisonment and your deliverance with an unpitied whipping, for you have been a notorious bawd. POMPEY Sir, I have been an unlawful bawd time out of mind; but yet I will be content to be a lawful hangman. I would be glad to receive some instruction from my fellow partner. Provost What, ho! Abhorson! Where's Abhorson, there? [Enter ABHORSON] ABHORSON Do you call, sir? Provost Sirrah, here's a fellow will help you to-morrow in your execution. If you think it meet, compound with him by the year, and let him abide here with you; if not, use him for the present and dismiss him. He cannot plead his estimation with you; he hath been a bawd. ABHORSON A bawd, sir? fie upon him! he will discredit our mystery. Provost Go to, sir; you weigh equally; a feather will turn the scale. [Exit] POMPEY Pray, sir, by your good favour,--for surely, sir, a good favour you have, but that you have a hanging look,--do you call, sir, your occupation a mystery? ABHORSON Ay, sir; a mystery POMPEY Painting, sir, I have heard say, is a mystery; and your whores, sir, being members of my occupation, using painting, do prove my occupation a mystery: but what mystery there should be in hanging, if I should be hanged, I cannot imagine. ABHORSON Sir, it is a mystery. POMPEY Proof? ABHORSON Every true man's apparel fits your thief: if it be too little for your thief, your true man thinks it big enough; if it be too big for your thief, your thief thinks it little enough: so every true man's apparel fits your thief. [Re-enter Provost] Provost Are you agreed? POMPEY Sir, I will serve him; for I do find your hangman is a more penitent trade than your bawd; he doth oftener ask forgiveness. Provost You, sirrah, provide your block and your axe to-morrow four o'clock. ABHORSON Come on, bawd; I will instruct thee in my trade; follow. POMPEY I do desire to learn, sir: and I hope, if you have occasion to use me for your own turn, you shall find me yare; for truly, sir, for your kindness I owe you a good turn. Provost Call hither Barnardine and Claudio: [Exeunt POMPEY and ABHORSON] The one has my pity; not a jot the other, Being a murderer, though he were my brother. [Enter CLAUDIO] Look, here's the warrant, Claudio, for thy death: 'Tis now dead midnight, and by eight to-morrow Thou must be made immortal. Where's Barnardine? CLAUDIO As fast lock'd up in sleep as guiltless labour When it lies starkly in the traveller's bones: He will not wake. Provost Who can do good on him? Well, go, prepare yourself. [Knocking within] But, hark, what noise? Heaven give your spirits comfort! [Exit CLAUDIO] By and by. I hope it is some pardon or reprieve For the most gentle Claudio. [Enter DUKE VINCENTIO disguised as before] Welcome father. DUKE VINCENTIO The best and wholesomest spirts of the night Envelope you, good Provost! Who call'd here of late? Provost None, since the curfew rung. DUKE VINCENTIO Not Isabel? Provost No. DUKE VINCENTIO They will, then, ere't be long. Provost What comfort is for Claudio? DUKE VINCENTIO There's some in hope. Provost It is a bitter deputy. DUKE VINCENTIO Not so, not so; his life is parallel'd Even with the stroke and line of his great justice: He doth with holy abstinence subdue That in himself which he spurs on his power To qualify in others: were he meal'd with that Which he corrects, then were he tyrannous; But this being so, he's just. [Knocking within] Now are they come. [Exit Provost] This is a gentle provost: seldom when The steeled gaoler is the friend of men. [Knocking within] How now! what noise? That spirit's possessed with haste That wounds the unsisting postern with these strokes. [Re-enter Provost] Provost There he must stay until the officer Arise to let him in: he is call'd up. DUKE VINCENTIO Have you no countermand for Claudio yet, But he must die to-morrow? Provost None, sir, none. DUKE VINCENTIO As near the dawning, provost, as it is, You shall hear more ere morning. Provost Happily You something know; yet I believe there comes No countermand; no such example have we: Besides, upon the very siege of justice Lord Angelo hath to the public ear Profess'd the contrary. [Enter a Messenger] This is his lordship's man. DUKE VINCENTIO And here comes Claudio's pardon. Messenger [Giving a paper] My lord hath sent you this note; and by me this further charge, that you swerve not from the smallest article of it, neither in time, matter, or other circumstance. Good morrow; for, as I take it, it is almost day. Provost I shall obey him. [Exit Messenger] DUKE VINCENTIO [Aside] This is his pardon, purchased by such sin For which the pardoner himself is in. Hence hath offence his quick celerity, When it is born in high authority: When vice makes mercy, mercy's so extended, That for the fault's love is the offender friended. Now, sir, what news? Provost I told you. Lord Angelo, belike thinking me remiss in mine office, awakens me with this unwonted putting-on; methinks strangely, for he hath not used it before. DUKE VINCENTIO Pray you, let's hear. Provost [Reads] 'Whatsoever you may hear to the contrary, let Claudio be executed by four of the clock; and in the afternoon Barnardine: for my better satisfaction, let me have Claudio's head sent me by five. Let this be duly performed; with a thought that more depends on it than we must yet deliver. Thus fail not to do your office, as you will answer it at your peril.' What say you to this, sir? DUKE VINCENTIO What is that Barnardine who is to be executed in the afternoon? Provost A Bohemian born, but here nursed un and bred; one that is a prisoner nine years old. DUKE VINCENTIO How came it that the absent duke had not either delivered him to his liberty or executed him? I have heard it was ever his manner to do so. Provost His friends still wrought reprieves for him: and, indeed, his fact, till now in the government of Lord Angelo, came not to an undoubtful proof. DUKE VINCENTIO It is now apparent? Provost Most manifest, and not denied by himself. DUKE VINCENTIO Hath he born himself penitently in prison? how seems he to be touched? Provost A man that apprehends death no more dreadfully but as a drunken sleep; careless, reckless, and fearless of what's past, present, or to come; insensible of mortality, and desperately mortal. DUKE VINCENTIO He wants advice. Provost He will hear none: he hath evermore had the liberty of the prison; give him leave to escape hence, he would not: drunk many times a day, if not many days entirely drunk. We have very oft awaked him, as if to carry him to execution, and showed him a seeming warrant for it: it hath not moved him at all. DUKE VINCENTIO More of him anon. There is written in your brow, provost, honesty and constancy: if I read it not truly, my ancient skill beguiles me; but, in the boldness of my cunning, I will lay myself in hazard. Claudio, whom here you have warrant to execute, is no greater forfeit to the law than Angelo who hath sentenced him. To make you understand this in a manifested effect, I crave but four days' respite; for the which you are to do me both a present and a dangerous courtesy. Provost Pray, sir, in what? DUKE VINCENTIO In the delaying death. Provost A lack, how may I do it, having the hour limited, and an express command, under penalty, to deliver his head in the view of Angelo? I may make my case as Claudio's, to cross this in the smallest. DUKE VINCENTIO By the vow of mine order I warrant you, if my instructions may be your guide. Let this Barnardine be this morning executed, and his head born to Angelo. Provost Angelo hath seen them both, and will discover the favour. DUKE VINCENTIO O, death's a great disguiser; and you may add to it. Shave the head, and tie the beard; and say it was the desire of the penitent to be so bared before his death: you know the course is common. If any thing fall to you upon this, more than thanks and good fortune, by the saint whom I profess, I will plead against it with my life. Provost Pardon me, good father; it is against my oath. DUKE VINCENTIO Were you sworn to the duke, or to the deputy? Provost To him, and to his substitutes. DUKE VINCENTIO You will think you have made no offence, if the duke avouch the justice of your dealing? Provost But what likelihood is in that? DUKE VINCENTIO Not a resemblance, but a certainty. Yet since I see you fearful, that neither my coat, integrity, nor persuasion can with ease attempt you, I will go further than I meant, to pluck all fears out of you. Look you, sir, here is the hand and seal of the duke: you know the character, I doubt not; and the signet is not strange to you. Provost I know them both. DUKE VINCENTIO The contents of this is the return of the duke: you shall anon over-read it at your pleasure; where you shall find, within these two days he will be here. This is a thing that Angelo knows not; for he this very day receives letters of strange tenor; perchance of the duke's death; perchance entering into some monastery; but, by chance, nothing of what is writ. Look, the unfolding star calls up the shepherd. Put not yourself into amazement how these things should be: all difficulties are but easy when they are known. Call your executioner, and off with Barnardine's head: I will give him a present shrift and advise him for a better place. Yet you are amazed; but this shall absolutely resolve you. Come away; it is almost clear dawn. [Exeunt] MEASURE FOR MEASURE ACT IV SCENE III Another room in the same. [Enter POMPEY] POMPEY I am as well acquainted here as I was in our house of profession: one would think it were Mistress Overdone's own house, for here be many of her old customers. First, here's young Master Rash; he's in for a commodity of brown paper and old ginger, ninescore and seventeen pounds; of which he made five marks, ready money: marry, then ginger was not much in request, for the old women were all dead. Then is there here one Master Caper, at the suit of Master Three-pile the mercer, for some four suits of peach-coloured satin, which now peaches him a beggar. Then have we here young Dizy, and young Master Deep-vow, and Master Copperspur, and Master Starve-lackey the rapier and dagger man, and young Drop-heir that killed lusty Pudding, and Master Forthlight the tilter, and brave Master Shooty the great traveller, and wild Half-can that stabbed Pots, and, I think, forty more; all great doers in our trade, and are now 'for the Lord's sake.' [Enter ABHORSON] ABHORSON Sirrah, bring Barnardine hither. POMPEY Master Barnardine! you must rise and be hanged. Master Barnardine! ABHORSON What, ho, Barnardine! BARNARDINE [Within] A pox o' your throats! Who makes that noise there? What are you? POMPEY Your friends, sir; the hangman. You must be so good, sir, to rise and be put to death. BARNARDINE [Within] Away, you rogue, away! I am sleepy. ABHORSON Tell him he must awake, and that quickly too. POMPEY Pray, Master Barnardine, awake till you are executed, and sleep afterwards. ABHORSON Go in to him, and fetch him out. POMPEY He is coming, sir, he is coming; I hear his straw rustle. ABHORSON Is the axe upon the block, sirrah? POMPEY Very ready, sir. [Enter BARNARDINE] BARNARDINE How now, Abhorson? what's the news with you? ABHORSON Truly, sir, I would desire you to clap into your prayers; for, look you, the warrant's come. BARNARDINE You rogue, I have been drinking all night; I am not fitted for 't. POMPEY O, the better, sir; for he that drinks all night, and is hanged betimes in the morning, may sleep the sounder all the next day. ABHORSON Look you, sir; here comes your ghostly father: do we jest now, think you? [Enter DUKE VINCENTIO disguised as before] DUKE VINCENTIO Sir, induced by my charity, and hearing how hastily you are to depart, I am come to advise you, comfort you and pray with you. BARNARDINE Friar, not I I have been drinking hard all night, and I will have more time to prepare me, or they shall beat out my brains with billets: I will not consent to die this day, that's certain. DUKE VINCENTIO O, sir, you must: and therefore I beseech you Look forward on the journey you shall go. BARNARDINE I swear I will not die to-day for any man's persuasion. DUKE VINCENTIO But hear you. BARNARDINE Not a word: if you have any thing to say to me, come to my ward; for thence will not I to-day. [Exit] DUKE VINCENTIO Unfit to live or die: O gravel heart! After him, fellows; bring him to the block. [Exeunt ABHORSON and POMPEY] [Re-enter Provost] Provost Now, sir, how do you find the prisoner? DUKE VINCENTIO A creature unprepared, unmeet for death; And to transport him in the mind he is Were damnable. Provost Here in the prison, father, There died this morning of a cruel fever One Ragozine, a most notorious pirate, A man of Claudio's years; his beard and head Just of his colour. What if we do omit This reprobate till he were well inclined; And satisfy the deputy with the visage Of Ragozine, more like to Claudio? DUKE VINCENTIO O, 'tis an accident that heaven provides! Dispatch it presently; the hour draws on Prefix'd by Angelo: see this be done, And sent according to command; whiles I Persuade this rude wretch willingly to die. Provost This shall be done, good father, presently. But Barnardine must die this afternoon: And how shall we continue Claudio, To save me from the danger that might come If he were known alive? DUKE VINCENTIO Let this be done. Put them in secret holds, both Barnardine and Claudio: Ere twice the sun hath made his journal greeting To the under generation, you shall find Your safety manifested. Provost I am your free dependant. DUKE VINCENTIO Quick, dispatch, and send the head to Angelo. [Exit Provost] Now will I write letters to Angelo,-- The provost, he shall bear them, whose contents Shall witness to him I am near at home, And that, by great injunctions, I am bound To enter publicly: him I'll desire To meet me at the consecrated fount A league below the city; and from thence, By cold gradation and well-balanced form, We shall proceed with Angelo. [Re-enter Provost] Provost Here is the head; I'll carry it myself. DUKE VINCENTIO Convenient is it. Make a swift return; For I would commune with you of such things That want no ear but yours. Provost I'll make all speed. [Exit] ISABELLA [Within] Peace, ho, be here! DUKE VINCENTIO The tongue of Isabel. She's come to know If yet her brother's pardon be come hither: But I will keep her ignorant of her good, To make her heavenly comforts of despair, When it is least expected. [Enter ISABELLA] ISABELLA Ho, by your leave! DUKE VINCENTIO Good morning to you, fair and gracious daughter. ISABELLA The better, given me by so holy a man. Hath yet the deputy sent my brother's pardon? DUKE VINCENTIO He hath released him, Isabel, from the world: His head is off and sent to Angelo. ISABELLA Nay, but it is not so. DUKE VINCENTIO It is no other: show your wisdom, daughter, In your close patience. ISABELLA O, I will to him and pluck out his eyes! DUKE VINCENTIO You shall not be admitted to his sight. ISABELLA Unhappy Claudio! wretched Isabel! Injurious world! most damned Angelo! DUKE VINCENTIO This nor hurts him nor profits you a jot; Forbear it therefore; give your cause to heaven. Mark what I say, which you shall find By every syllable a faithful verity: The duke comes home to-morrow; nay, dry your eyes; One of our convent, and his confessor, Gives me this instance: already he hath carried Notice to Escalus and Angelo, Who do prepare to meet him at the gates, There to give up their power. If you can, pace your wisdom In that good path that I would wish it go, And you shall have your bosom on this wretch, Grace of the duke, revenges to your heart, And general honour. ISABELLA I am directed by you. DUKE VINCENTIO This letter, then, to Friar Peter give; 'Tis that he sent me of the duke's return: Say, by this token, I desire his company At Mariana's house to-night. Her cause and yours I'll perfect him withal, and he shall bring you Before the duke, and to the head of Angelo Accuse him home and home. For my poor self, I am combined by a sacred vow And shall be absent. Wend you with this letter: Command these fretting waters from your eyes With a light heart; trust not my holy order, If I pervert your course. Who's here? [Enter LUCIO] LUCIO Good even. Friar, where's the provost? DUKE VINCENTIO Not within, sir. LUCIO O pretty Isabella, I am pale at mine heart to see thine eyes so red: thou must be patient. I am fain to dine and sup with water and bran; I dare not for my head fill my belly; one fruitful meal would set me to 't. But they say the duke will be here to-morrow. By my troth, Isabel, I loved thy brother: if the old fantastical duke of dark corners had been at home, he had lived. [Exit ISABELLA] DUKE VINCENTIO Sir, the duke is marvellous little beholding to your reports; but the best is, he lives not in them. LUCIO Friar, thou knowest not the duke so well as I do: he's a better woodman than thou takest him for. DUKE VINCENTIO Well, you'll answer this one day. Fare ye well. LUCIO Nay, tarry; I'll go along with thee I can tell thee pretty tales of the duke. DUKE VINCENTIO You have told me too many of him already, sir, if they be true; if not true, none were enough. LUCIO I was once before him for getting a wench with child. DUKE VINCENTIO Did you such a thing? LUCIO Yes, marry, did I but I was fain to forswear it; they would else have married me to the rotten medlar. DUKE VINCENTIO Sir, your company is fairer than honest. Rest you well. LUCIO By my troth, I'll go with thee to the lane's end: if bawdy talk offend you, we'll have very little of it. Nay, friar, I am a kind of burr; I shall stick. [Exeunt] MEASURE FOR MEASURE ACT IV SCENE IV A room in ANGELO's house. [Enter ANGELO and ESCALUS] ESCALUS Every letter he hath writ hath disvouched other. ANGELO In most uneven and distracted manner. His actions show much like to madness: pray heaven his wisdom be not tainted! And why meet him at the gates, and redeliver our authorities there ESCALUS I guess not. ANGELO And why should we proclaim it in an hour before his entering, that if any crave redress of injustice, they should exhibit their petitions in the street? ESCALUS He shows his reason for that: to have a dispatch of complaints, and to deliver us from devices hereafter, which shall then have no power to stand against us. ANGELO Well, I beseech you, let it be proclaimed betimes i' the morn; I'll call you at your house: give notice to such men of sort and suit as are to meet him. ESCALUS I shall, sir. Fare you well. ANGELO Good night. [Exit ESCALUS] This deed unshapes me quite, makes me unpregnant And dull to all proceedings. A deflower'd maid! And by an eminent body that enforced The law against it! But that her tender shame Will not proclaim against her maiden loss, How might she tongue me! Yet reason dares her no; For my authority bears of a credent bulk, That no particular scandal once can touch But it confounds the breather. He should have lived, Save that riotous youth, with dangerous sense, Might in the times to come have ta'en revenge, By so receiving a dishonour'd life With ransom of such shame. Would yet he had lived! A lack, when once our grace we have forgot, Nothing goes right: we would, and we would not. [Exit] MEASURE FOR MEASURE ACT IV SCENE V Fields without the town. [Enter DUKE VINCENTIO in his own habit, and FRIAR PETER] DUKE VINCENTIO These letters at fit time deliver me [Giving letters] The provost knows our purpose and our plot. The matter being afoot, keep your instruction, And hold you ever to our special drift; Though sometimes you do blench from this to that, As cause doth minister. Go call at Flavius' house, And tell him where I stay: give the like notice To Valentinus, Rowland, and to Crassus, And bid them bring the trumpets to the gate; But send me Flavius first. FRIAR PETER It shall be speeded well. [Exit] [Enter VARRIUS] DUKE VINCENTIO I thank thee, Varrius; thou hast made good haste: Come, we will walk. There's other of our friends Will greet us here anon, my gentle Varrius. [Exeunt] MEASURE FOR MEASURE ACT IV SCENE VI Street near the city gate. [Enter ISABELLA and MARIANA] ISABELLA To speak so indirectly I am loath: I would say the truth; but to accuse him so, That is your part: yet I am advised to do it; He says, to veil full purpose. MARIANA Be ruled by him. ISABELLA Besides, he tells me that, if peradventure He speak against me on the adverse side, I should not think it strange; for 'tis a physic That's bitter to sweet end. MARIANA I would Friar Peter-- ISABELLA O, peace! the friar is come. [Enter FRIAR PETER] FRIAR PETER Come, I have found you out a stand most fit, Where you may have such vantage on the duke, He shall not pass you. Twice have the trumpets sounded; The generous and gravest citizens Have hent the gates, and very near upon The duke is entering: therefore, hence, away! [Exeunt] MEASURE FOR MEASURE ACT V SCENE I The city gate. [MARIANA veiled, ISABELLA, and FRIAR PETER, at their stand. Enter DUKE VINCENTIO, VARRIUS, Lords, ANGELO, ESCALUS, LUCIO, Provost, Officers, and Citizens, at several doors] DUKE VINCENTIO My very worthy cousin, fairly met! Our old and faithful friend, we are glad to see you. ANGELO | | Happy return be to your royal grace! ESCALUS | DUKE VINCENTIO Many and hearty thankings to you both. We have made inquiry of you; and we hear Such goodness of your justice, that our soul Cannot but yield you forth to public thanks, Forerunning more requital. ANGELO You make my bonds still greater. DUKE VINCENTIO O, your desert speaks loud; and I should wrong it, To lock it in the wards of covert bosom, When it deserves, with characters of brass, A forted residence 'gainst the tooth of time And razure of oblivion. Give me your hand, And let the subject see, to make them know That outward courtesies would fain proclaim Favours that keep within. Come, Escalus, You must walk by us on our other hand; And good supporters are you. [FRIAR PETER and ISABELLA come forward] FRIAR PETER Now is your time: speak loud and kneel before him. ISABELLA Justice, O royal duke! Vail your regard Upon a wrong'd, I would fain have said, a maid! O worthy prince, dishonour not your eye By throwing it on any other object Till you have heard me in my true complaint And given me justice, justice, justice, justice! DUKE VINCENTIO Relate your wrongs; in what? by whom? be brief. Here is Lord Angelo shall give you justice: Reveal yourself to him. ISABELLA O worthy duke, You bid me seek redemption of the devil: Hear me yourself; for that which I must speak Must either punish me, not being believed, Or wring redress from you. Hear me, O hear me, here! ANGELO My lord, her wits, I fear me, are not firm: She hath been a suitor to me for her brother Cut off by course of justice,-- ISABELLA By course of justice! ANGELO And she will speak most bitterly and strange. ISABELLA Most strange, but yet most truly, will I speak: That Angelo's forsworn; is it not strange? That Angelo's a murderer; is 't not strange? That Angelo is an adulterous thief, An hypocrite, a virgin-violator; Is it not strange and strange? DUKE VINCENTIO Nay, it is ten times strange. ISABELLA It is not truer he is Angelo Than this is all as true as it is strange: Nay, it is ten times true; for truth is truth To the end of reckoning. DUKE VINCENTIO Away with her! Poor soul, She speaks this in the infirmity of sense. ISABELLA O prince, I conjure thee, as thou believest There is another comfort than this world, That thou neglect me not, with that opinion That I am touch'd with madness! Make not impossible That which but seems unlike: 'tis not impossible But one, the wicked'st caitiff on the ground, May seem as shy, as grave, as just, as absolute As Angelo; even so may Angelo, In all his dressings, characts, titles, forms, Be an arch-villain; believe it, royal prince: If he be less, he's nothing; but he's more, Had I more name for badness. DUKE VINCENTIO By mine honesty, If she be mad,--as I believe no other,-- Her madness hath the oddest frame of sense, Such a dependency of thing on thing, As e'er I heard in madness. ISABELLA O gracious duke, Harp not on that, nor do not banish reason For inequality; but let your reason serve To make the truth appear where it seems hid, And hide the false seems true. DUKE VINCENTIO Many that are not mad Have, sure, more lack of reason. What would you say? ISABELLA I am the sister of one Claudio, Condemn'd upon the act of fornication To lose his head; condemn'd by Angelo: I, in probation of a sisterhood, Was sent to by my brother; one Lucio As then the messenger,-- LUCIO That's I, an't like your grace: I came to her from Claudio, and desired her To try her gracious fortune with Lord Angelo For her poor brother's pardon. ISABELLA That's he indeed. DUKE VINCENTIO You were not bid to speak. LUCIO No, my good lord; Nor wish'd to hold my peace. DUKE VINCENTIO I wish you now, then; Pray you, take note of it: and when you have A business for yourself, pray heaven you then Be perfect. LUCIO I warrant your honour. DUKE VINCENTIO The warrants for yourself; take heed to't. ISABELLA This gentleman told somewhat of my tale,-- LUCIO Right. DUKE VINCENTIO It may be right; but you are i' the wrong To speak before your time. Proceed. ISABELLA I went To this pernicious caitiff deputy,-- DUKE VINCENTIO That's somewhat madly spoken. ISABELLA Pardon it; The phrase is to the matter. DUKE VINCENTIO Mended again. The matter; proceed. ISABELLA In brief, to set the needless process by, How I persuaded, how I pray'd, and kneel'd, How he refell'd me, and how I replied,-- For this was of much length,--the vile conclusion I now begin with grief and shame to utter: He would not, but by gift of my chaste body To his concupiscible intemperate lust, Release my brother; and, after much debatement, My sisterly remorse confutes mine honour, And I did yield to him: but the next morn betimes, His purpose surfeiting, he sends a warrant For my poor brother's head. DUKE VINCENTIO This is most likely! ISABELLA O, that it were as like as it is true! DUKE VINCENTIO By heaven, fond wretch, thou knowist not what thou speak'st, Or else thou art suborn'd against his honour In hateful practise. First, his integrity Stands without blemish. Next, it imports no reason That with such vehemency he should pursue Faults proper to himself: if he had so offended, He would have weigh'd thy brother by himself And not have cut him off. Some one hath set you on: Confess the truth, and say by whose advice Thou camest here to complain. ISABELLA And is this all? Then, O you blessed ministers above, Keep me in patience, and with ripen'd time Unfold the evil which is here wrapt up In countenance! Heaven shield your grace from woe, As I, thus wrong'd, hence unbelieved go! DUKE VINCENTIO I know you'ld fain be gone. An officer! To prison with her! Shall we thus permit A blasting and a scandalous breath to fall On him so near us? This needs must be a practise. Who knew of Your intent and coming hither? ISABELLA One that I would were here, Friar Lodowick. DUKE VINCENTIO A ghostly father, belike. Who knows that Lodowick? LUCIO My lord, I know him; 'tis a meddling friar; I do not like the man: had he been lay, my lord For certain words he spake against your grace In your retirement, I had swinged him soundly. DUKE VINCENTIO Words against me? this is a good friar, belike! And to set on this wretched woman here Against our substitute! Let this friar be found. LUCIO But yesternight, my lord, she and that friar, I saw them at the prison: a saucy friar, A very scurvy fellow. FRIAR PETER Blessed be your royal grace! I have stood by, my lord, and I have heard Your royal ear abused. First, hath this woman Most wrongfully accused your substitute, Who is as free from touch or soil with her As she from one ungot. DUKE VINCENTIO We did believe no less. Know you that Friar Lodowick that she speaks of? FRIAR PETER I know him for a man divine and holy; Not scurvy, nor a temporary meddler, As he's reported by this gentleman; And, on my trust, a man that never yet Did, as he vouches, misreport your grace. LUCIO My lord, most villanously; believe it. FRIAR PETER Well, he in time may come to clear himself; But at this instant he is sick my lord, Of a strange fever. Upon his mere request, Being come to knowledge that there was complaint Intended 'gainst Lord Angelo, came I hither, To speak, as from his mouth, what he doth know Is true and false; and what he with his oath And all probation will make up full clear, Whensoever he's convented. First, for this woman. To justify this worthy nobleman, So vulgarly and personally accused, Her shall you hear disproved to her eyes, Till she herself confess it. DUKE VINCENTIO Good friar, let's hear it. [ISABELLA is carried off guarded; and MARIANA comes forward] Do you not smile at this, Lord Angelo? O heaven, the vanity of wretched fools! Give us some seats. Come, cousin Angelo; In this I'll be impartial; be you judge Of your own cause. Is this the witness, friar? First, let her show her face, and after speak. MARIANA Pardon, my lord; I will not show my face Until my husband bid me. DUKE VINCENTIO What, are you married? MARIANA No, my lord. DUKE VINCENTIO Are you a maid? MARIANA No, my lord. DUKE VINCENTIO A widow, then? MARIANA Neither, my lord. DUKE VINCENTIO Why, you are nothing then: neither maid, widow, nor wife? LUCIO My lord, she may be a punk; for many of them are neither maid, widow, nor wife. DUKE VINCENTIO Silence that fellow: I would he had some cause To prattle for himself. LUCIO Well, my lord. MARIANA My lord; I do confess I ne'er was married; And I confess besides I am no maid: I have known my husband; yet my husband Knows not that ever he knew me. LUCIO He was drunk then, my lord: it can be no better. DUKE VINCENTIO For the benefit of silence, would thou wert so too! LUCIO Well, my lord. DUKE VINCENTIO This is no witness for Lord Angelo. MARIANA Now I come to't my lord She that accuses him of fornication, In self-same manner doth accuse my husband, And charges him my lord, with such a time When I'll depose I had him in mine arms With all the effect of love. ANGELO Charges she more than me? MARIANA Not that I know. DUKE VINCENTIO No? you say your husband. MARIANA Why, just, my lord, and that is Angelo, Who thinks he knows that he ne'er knew my body, But knows he thinks that he knows Isabel's. ANGELO This is a strange abuse. Let's see thy face. MARIANA My husband bids me; now I will unmask. [Unveiling] This is that face, thou cruel Angelo, Which once thou sworest was worth the looking on; This is the hand which, with a vow'd contract, Was fast belock'd in thine; this is the body That took away the match from Isabel, And did supply thee at thy garden-house In her imagined person. DUKE VINCENTIO Know you this woman? LUCIO Carnally, she says. DUKE VINCENTIO Sirrah, no more! LUCIO Enough, my lord. ANGELO My lord, I must confess I know this woman: And five years since there was some speech of marriage Betwixt myself and her; which was broke off, Partly for that her promised proportions Came short of composition, but in chief For that her reputation was disvalued In levity: since which time of five years I never spake with her, saw her, nor heard from her, Upon my faith and honour. MARIANA Noble prince, As there comes light from heaven and words from breath, As there is sense in truth and truth in virtue, I am affianced this man's wife as strongly As words could make up vows: and, my good lord, But Tuesday night last gone in's garden-house He knew me as a wife. As this is true, Let me in safety raise me from my knees Or else for ever be confixed here, A marble monument! ANGELO I did but smile till now: Now, good my lord, give me the scope of justice My patience here is touch'd. I do perceive These poor informal women are no more But instruments of some more mightier member That sets them on: let me have way, my lord, To find this practise out. DUKE VINCENTIO Ay, with my heart And punish them to your height of pleasure. Thou foolish friar, and thou pernicious woman, Compact with her that's gone, think'st thou thy oaths, Though they would swear down each particular saint, Were testimonies against his worth and credit That's seal'd in approbation? You, Lord Escalus, Sit with my cousin; lend him your kind pains To find out this abuse, whence 'tis derived. There is another friar that set them on; Let him be sent for. FRIAR PETER Would he were here, my lord! for he indeed Hath set the women on to this complaint: Your provost knows the place where he abides And he may fetch him. DUKE VINCENTIO Go do it instantly. [Exit Provost] And you, my noble and well-warranted cousin, Whom it concerns to hear this matter forth, Do with your injuries as seems you best, In any chastisement: I for a while will leave you; But stir not you till you have well determined Upon these slanderers. ESCALUS My lord, we'll do it throughly. [Exit DUKE] Signior Lucio, did not you say you knew that Friar Lodowick to be a dishonest person? LUCIO 'Cucullus non facit monachum:' honest in nothing but in his clothes; and one that hath spoke most villanous speeches of the duke. ESCALUS We shall entreat you to abide here till he come and enforce them against him: we shall find this friar a notable fellow. LUCIO As any in Vienna, on my word. ESCALUS Call that same Isabel here once again; I would speak with her. [Exit an Attendant] Pray you, my lord, give me leave to question; you shall see how I'll handle her. LUCIO Not better than he, by her own report. ESCALUS Say you? LUCIO Marry, sir, I think, if you handled her privately, she would sooner confess: perchance, publicly, she'll be ashamed. ESCALUS I will go darkly to work with her. LUCIO That's the way; for women are light at midnight. [Re-enter Officers with ISABELLA; and Provost with the DUKE VINCENTIO in his friar's habit] ESCALUS Come on, mistress: here's a gentlewoman denies all that you have said. LUCIO My lord, here comes the rascal I spoke of; here with the provost. ESCALUS In very good time: speak not you to him till we call upon you. LUCIO Mum. ESCALUS Come, sir: did you set these women on to slander Lord Angelo? they have confessed you did. DUKE VINCENTIO 'Tis false. ESCALUS How! know you where you are? DUKE VINCENTIO Respect to your great place! and let the devil Be sometime honour'd for his burning throne! Where is the duke? 'tis he should hear me speak. ESCALUS The duke's in us; and we will hear you speak: Look you speak justly. DUKE VINCENTIO Boldly, at least. But, O, poor souls, Come you to seek the lamb here of the fox? Good night to your redress! Is the duke gone? Then is your cause gone too. The duke's unjust, Thus to retort your manifest appeal, And put your trial in the villain's mouth Which here you come to accuse. LUCIO This is the rascal; this is he I spoke of. ESCALUS Why, thou unreverend and unhallow'd friar, Is't not enough thou hast suborn'd these women To accuse this worthy man, but, in foul mouth And in the witness of his proper ear, To call him villain? and then to glance from him To the duke himself, to tax him with injustice? Take him hence; to the rack with him! We'll touse you Joint by joint, but we will know his purpose. What 'unjust'! DUKE VINCENTIO Be not so hot; the duke Dare no more stretch this finger of mine than he Dare rack his own: his subject am I not, Nor here provincial. My business in this state Made me a looker on here in Vienna, Where I have seen corruption boil and bubble Till it o'er-run the stew; laws for all faults, But faults so countenanced, that the strong statutes Stand like the forfeits in a barber's shop, As much in mock as mark. ESCALUS Slander to the state! Away with him to prison! ANGELO What can you vouch against him, Signior Lucio? Is this the man that you did tell us of? LUCIO 'Tis he, my lord. Come hither, goodman baldpate: do you know me? DUKE VINCENTIO I remember you, sir, by the sound of your voice: I met you at the prison, in the absence of the duke. LUCIO O, did you so? And do you remember what you said of the duke? DUKE VINCENTIO Most notedly, sir. LUCIO Do you so, sir? And was the duke a fleshmonger, a fool, and a coward, as you then reported him to be? DUKE VINCENTIO You must, sir, change persons with me, ere you make that my report: you, indeed, spoke so of him; and much more, much worse. LUCIO O thou damnable fellow! Did not I pluck thee by the nose for thy speeches? DUKE VINCENTIO I protest I love the duke as I love myself. ANGELO Hark, how the villain would close now, after his treasonable abuses! ESCALUS Such a fellow is not to be talked withal. Away with him to prison! Where is the provost? Away with him to prison! lay bolts enough upon him: let him speak no more. Away with those giglots too, and with the other confederate companion! DUKE VINCENTIO [To Provost] Stay, sir; stay awhile. ANGELO What, resists he? Help him, Lucio. LUCIO Come, sir; come, sir; come, sir; foh, sir! Why, you bald-pated, lying rascal, you must be hooded, must you? Show your knave's visage, with a pox to you! show your sheep-biting face, and be hanged an hour! Will't not off? [Pulls off the friar's hood, and discovers DUKE VINCENTIO] DUKE VINCENTIO Thou art the first knave that e'er madest a duke. First, provost, let me bail these gentle three. [To LUCIO] Sneak not away, sir; for the friar and you Must have a word anon. Lay hold on him. LUCIO This may prove worse than hanging. DUKE VINCENTIO [To ESCALUS] What you have spoke I pardon: sit you down: We'll borrow place of him. [To ANGELO] Sir, by your leave. Hast thou or word, or wit, or impudence, That yet can do thee office? If thou hast, Rely upon it till my tale be heard, And hold no longer out. ANGELO O my dread lord, I should be guiltier than my guiltiness, To think I can be undiscernible, When I perceive your grace, like power divine, Hath look'd upon my passes. Then, good prince, No longer session hold upon my shame, But let my trial be mine own confession: Immediate sentence then and sequent death Is all the grace I beg. DUKE VINCENTIO Come hither, Mariana. Say, wast thou e'er contracted to this woman? ANGELO I was, my lord. DUKE VINCENTIO Go take her hence, and marry her instantly. Do you the office, friar; which consummate, Return him here again. Go with him, provost. [Exeunt ANGELO, MARIANA, FRIAR PETER and Provost] ESCALUS My lord, I am more amazed at his dishonour Than at the strangeness of it. DUKE VINCENTIO Come hither, Isabel. Your friar is now your prince: as I was then Advertising and holy to your business, Not changing heart with habit, I am still Attorney'd at your service. ISABELLA O, give me pardon, That I, your vassal, have employ'd and pain'd Your unknown sovereignty! DUKE VINCENTIO You are pardon'd, Isabel: And now, dear maid, be you as free to us. Your brother's death, I know, sits at your heart; And you may marvel why I obscured myself, Labouring to save his life, and would not rather Make rash remonstrance of my hidden power Than let him so be lost. O most kind maid, It was the swift celerity of his death, Which I did think with slower foot came on, That brain'd my purpose. But, peace be with him! That life is better life, past fearing death, Than that which lives to fear: make it your comfort, So happy is your brother. ISABELLA I do, my lord. [Re-enter ANGELO, MARIANA, FRIAR PETER, and Provost] DUKE VINCENTIO For this new-married man approaching here, Whose salt imagination yet hath wrong'd Your well defended honour, you must pardon For Mariana's sake: but as he adjudged your brother,-- Being criminal, in double violation Of sacred chastity and of promise-breach Thereon dependent, for your brother's life,-- The very mercy of the law cries out Most audible, even from his proper tongue, 'An Angelo for Claudio, death for death!' Haste still pays haste, and leisure answers leisure; Like doth quit like, and MEASURE still FOR MEASURE. Then, Angelo, thy fault's thus manifested; Which, though thou wouldst deny, denies thee vantage. We do condemn thee to the very block Where Claudio stoop'd to death, and with like haste. Away with him! MARIANA O my most gracious lord, I hope you will not mock me with a husband. DUKE VINCENTIO It is your husband mock'd you with a husband. Consenting to the safeguard of your honour, I thought your marriage fit; else imputation, For that he knew you, might reproach your life And choke your good to come; for his possessions, Although by confiscation they are ours, We do instate and widow you withal, To buy you a better husband. MARIANA O my dear lord, I crave no other, nor no better man. DUKE VINCENTIO Never crave him; we are definitive. MARIANA Gentle my liege,-- [Kneeling] DUKE VINCENTIO You do but lose your labour. Away with him to death! [To LUCIO] Now, sir, to you. MARIANA O my good lord! Sweet Isabel, take my part; Lend me your knees, and all my life to come I'll lend you all my life to do you service. DUKE VINCENTIO Against all sense you do importune her: Should she kneel down in mercy of this fact, Her brother's ghost his paved bed would break, And take her hence in horror. MARIANA Isabel, Sweet Isabel, do yet but kneel by me; Hold up your hands, say nothing; I'll speak all. They say, best men are moulded out of faults; And, for the most, become much more the better For being a little bad: so may my husband. O Isabel, will you not lend a knee? DUKE VINCENTIO He dies for Claudio's death. ISABELLA Most bounteous sir, [Kneeling] Look, if it please you, on this man condemn'd, As if my brother lived: I partly think A due sincerity govern'd his deeds, Till he did look on me: since it is so, Let him not die. My brother had but justice, In that he did the thing for which he died: For Angelo, His act did not o'ertake his bad intent, And must be buried but as an intent That perish'd by the way: thoughts are no subjects; Intents but merely thoughts. MARIANA Merely, my lord. DUKE VINCENTIO Your suit's unprofitable; stand up, I say. I have bethought me of another fault. Provost, how came it Claudio was beheaded At an unusual hour? Provost It was commanded so. DUKE VINCENTIO Had you a special warrant for the deed? Provost No, my good lord; it was by private message. DUKE VINCENTIO For which I do discharge you of your office: Give up your keys. Provost Pardon me, noble lord: I thought it was a fault, but knew it not; Yet did repent me, after more advice; For testimony whereof, one in the prison, That should by private order else have died, I have reserved alive. DUKE VINCENTIO What's he? Provost His name is Barnardine. DUKE VINCENTIO I would thou hadst done so by Claudio. Go fetch him hither; let me look upon him. [Exit Provost] ESCALUS I am sorry, one so learned and so wise As you, Lord Angelo, have still appear'd, Should slip so grossly, both in the heat of blood. And lack of temper'd judgment afterward. ANGELO I am sorry that such sorrow I procure: And so deep sticks it in my penitent heart That I crave death more willingly than mercy; 'Tis my deserving, and I do entreat it. [Re-enter Provost, with BARNARDINE, CLAUDIO muffled, and JULIET] DUKE VINCENTIO Which is that Barnardine? Provost This, my lord. DUKE VINCENTIO There was a friar told me of this man. Sirrah, thou art said to have a stubborn soul. That apprehends no further than this world, And squarest thy life according. Thou'rt condemn'd: But, for those earthly faults, I quit them all; And pray thee take this mercy to provide For better times to come. Friar, advise him; I leave him to your hand. What muffled fellow's that? Provost This is another prisoner that I saved. Who should have died when Claudio lost his head; As like almost to Claudio as himself. [Unmuffles CLAUDIO] DUKE VINCENTIO [To ISABELLA] If he be like your brother, for his sake Is he pardon'd; and, for your lovely sake, Give me your hand and say you will be mine. He is my brother too: but fitter time for that. By this Lord Angelo perceives he's safe; Methinks I see a quickening in his eye. Well, Angelo, your evil quits you well: Look that you love your wife; her worth worth yours. I find an apt remission in myself; And yet here's one in place I cannot pardon. [To LUCIO] You, sirrah, that knew me for a fool, a coward, One all of luxury, an ass, a madman; Wherein have I so deserved of you, That you extol me thus? LUCIO 'Faith, my lord. I spoke it but according to the trick. If you will hang me for it, you may; but I had rather it would please you I might be whipt. DUKE VINCENTIO Whipt first, sir, and hanged after. Proclaim it, provost, round about the city. Is any woman wrong'd by this lewd fellow, As I have heard him swear himself there's one Whom he begot with child, let her appear, And he shall marry her: the nuptial finish'd, Let him be whipt and hang'd. LUCIO I beseech your highness, do not marry me to a whore. Your highness said even now, I made you a duke: good my lord, do not recompense me in making me a cuckold. DUKE VINCENTIO Upon mine honour, thou shalt marry her. Thy slanders I forgive; and therewithal Remit thy other forfeits. Take him to prison; And see our pleasure herein executed. LUCIO Marrying a punk, my lord, is pressing to death, whipping, and hanging. DUKE VINCENTIO Slandering a prince deserves it. [Exit Officers with LUCIO] She, Claudio, that you wrong'd, look you restore. Joy to you, Mariana! Love her, Angelo: I have confess'd her and I know her virtue. Thanks, good friend Escalus, for thy much goodness: There's more behind that is more gratulate. Thanks, provost, for thy care and secrecy: We shill employ thee in a worthier place. Forgive him, Angelo, that brought you home The head of Ragozine for Claudio's: The offence pardons itself. Dear Isabel, I have a motion much imports your good; Whereto if you'll a willing ear incline, What's mine is yours and what is yours is mine. So, bring us to our palace; where we'll show What's yet behind, that's meet you all should know. [Exeunt] THE MERCHANT OF VENICE DRAMATIS PERSONAE The DUKE OF VENICE. (DUKE:) The PRINCE OF | MOROCCO (MOROCCO:) | | suitors to Portia. The PRINCE OF | ARRAGON (ARRAGON:) | ANTONIO a merchant of Venice. BASSANIO his friend, suitor likewise to Portia. SALANIO | | SALARINO | | friends to Antonio and Bassanio. GRATIANO | | SALERIO | LORENZO in love with Jessica. SHYLOCK a rich Jew. TUBAL a Jew, his friend. LAUNCELOT GOBBO the clown, servant to SHYLOCK. (LAUNCELOT:) OLD GOBBO father to Launcelot. (GOBBO:) LEONARDO servant to BASSANIO. BALTHASAR | | servants to PORTIA. STEPHANO | PORTIA a rich heiress. NERISSA her waiting-maid. JESSICA daughter to SHYLOCK. Magnificoes of Venice, Officers of the Court of Justice, Gaoler, Servants to Portia, and other Attendants. (Servant:) (Clerk:) SCENE Partly at Venice, and partly at Belmont, the seat of PORTIA, on the Continent. THE MERCHANT OF VENICE ACT I SCENE I Venice. A street. [Enter ANTONIO, SALARINO, and SALANIO] ANTONIO In sooth, I know not why I am so sad: It wearies me; you say it wearies you; But how I caught it, found it, or came by it, What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born, I am to learn; And such a want-wit sadness makes of me, That I have much ado to know myself. SALARINO Your mind is tossing on the ocean; There, where your argosies with portly sail, Like signiors and rich burghers on the flood, Or, as it were, the pageants of the sea, Do overpeer the petty traffickers, That curtsy to them, do them reverence, As they fly by them with their woven wings. SALANIO Believe me, sir, had I such venture forth, The better part of my affections would Be with my hopes abroad. I should be still Plucking the grass, to know where sits the wind, Peering in maps for ports and piers and roads; And every object that might make me fear Misfortune to my ventures, out of doubt Would make me sad. SALARINO My wind cooling my broth Would blow me to an ague, when I thought What harm a wind too great at sea might do. I should not see the sandy hour-glass run, But I should think of shallows and of flats, And see my wealthy Andrew dock'd in sand, Vailing her high-top lower than her ribs To kiss her burial. Should I go to church And see the holy edifice of stone, And not bethink me straight of dangerous rocks, Which touching but my gentle vessel's side, Would scatter all her spices on the stream, Enrobe the roaring waters with my silks, And, in a word, but even now worth this, And now worth nothing? Shall I have the thought To think on this, and shall I lack the thought That such a thing bechanced would make me sad? But tell not me; I know, Antonio Is sad to think upon his merchandise. ANTONIO Believe me, no: I thank my fortune for it, My ventures are not in one bottom trusted, Nor to one place; nor is my whole estate Upon the fortune of this present year: Therefore my merchandise makes me not sad. SALARINO Why, then you are in love. ANTONIO Fie, fie! SALARINO Not in love neither? Then let us say you are sad, Because you are not merry: and 'twere as easy For you to laugh and leap and say you are merry, Because you are not sad. Now, by two-headed Janus, Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time: Some that will evermore peep through their eyes And laugh like parrots at a bag-piper, And other of such vinegar aspect That they'll not show their teeth in way of smile, Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable. [Enter BASSANIO, LORENZO, and GRATIANO] SALANIO Here comes Bassanio, your most noble kinsman, Gratiano and Lorenzo. Fare ye well: We leave you now with better company. SALARINO I would have stay'd till I had made you merry, If worthier friends had not prevented me. ANTONIO Your worth is very dear in my regard. I take it, your own business calls on you And you embrace the occasion to depart. SALARINO Good morrow, my good lords. BASSANIO Good signiors both, when shall we laugh? say, when? You grow exceeding strange: must it be so? SALARINO We'll make our leisures to attend on yours. [Exeunt Salarino and Salanio] LORENZO My Lord Bassanio, since you have found Antonio, We two will leave you: but at dinner-time, I pray you, have in mind where we must meet. BASSANIO I will not fail you. GRATIANO You look not well, Signior Antonio; You have too much respect upon the world: They lose it that do buy it with much care: Believe me, you are marvellously changed. ANTONIO I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano; A stage where every man must play a part, And mine a sad one. GRATIANO Let me play the fool: With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come, And let my liver rather heat with wine Than my heart cool with mortifying groans. Why should a man, whose blood is warm within, Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster? Sleep when he wakes and creep into the jaundice By being peevish? I tell thee what, Antonio-- I love thee, and it is my love that speaks-- There are a sort of men whose visages Do cream and mantle like a standing pond, And do a wilful stillness entertain, With purpose to be dress'd in an opinion Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit, As who should say 'I am Sir Oracle, And when I ope my lips let no dog bark!' O my Antonio, I do know of these That therefore only are reputed wise For saying nothing; when, I am very sure, If they should speak, would almost damn those ears, Which, hearing them, would call their brothers fools. I'll tell thee more of this another time: But fish not, with this melancholy bait, For this fool gudgeon, this opinion. Come, good Lorenzo. Fare ye well awhile: I'll end my exhortation after dinner. LORENZO Well, we will leave you then till dinner-time: I must be one of these same dumb wise men, For Gratiano never lets me speak. GRATIANO Well, keep me company but two years moe, Thou shalt not know the sound of thine own tongue. ANTONIO Farewell: I'll grow a talker for this gear. GRATIANO Thanks, i' faith, for silence is only commendable In a neat's tongue dried and a maid not vendible. [Exeunt GRATIANO and LORENZO] ANTONIO Is that any thing now? BASSANIO Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in all Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff: you shall seek all day ere you find them, and when you have them, they are not worth the search. ANTONIO Well, tell me now what lady is the same To whom you swore a secret pilgrimage, That you to-day promised to tell me of? BASSANIO 'Tis not unknown to you, Antonio, How much I have disabled mine estate, By something showing a more swelling port Than my faint means would grant continuance: Nor do I now make moan to be abridged From such a noble rate; but my chief care Is to come fairly off from the great debts Wherein my time something too prodigal Hath left me gaged. To you, Antonio, I owe the most, in money and in love, And from your love I have a warranty To unburden all my plots and purposes How to get clear of all the debts I owe. ANTONIO I pray you, good Bassanio, let me know it; And if it stand, as you yourself still do, Within the eye of honour, be assured, My purse, my person, my extremest means, Lie all unlock'd to your occasions. BASSANIO In my school-days, when I had lost one shaft, I shot his fellow of the self-same flight The self-same way with more advised watch, To find the other forth, and by adventuring both I oft found both: I urge this childhood proof, Because what follows is pure innocence. I owe you much, and, like a wilful youth, That which I owe is lost; but if you please To shoot another arrow that self way Which you did shoot the first, I do not doubt, As I will watch the aim, or to find both Or bring your latter hazard back again And thankfully rest debtor for the first. ANTONIO You know me well, and herein spend but time To wind about my love with circumstance; And out of doubt you do me now more wrong In making question of my uttermost Than if you had made waste of all I have: Then do but say to me what I should do That in your knowledge may by me be done, And I am prest unto it: therefore, speak. BASSANIO In Belmont is a lady richly left; And she is fair, and, fairer than that word, Of wondrous virtues: sometimes from her eyes I did receive fair speechless messages: Her name is Portia, nothing undervalued To Cato's daughter, Brutus' Portia: Nor is the wide world ignorant of her worth, For the four winds blow in from every coast Renowned suitors, and her sunny locks Hang on her temples like a golden fleece; Which makes her seat of Belmont Colchos' strand, And many Jasons come in quest of her. O my Antonio, had I but the means To hold a rival place with one of them, I have a mind presages me such thrift, That I should questionless be fortunate! ANTONIO Thou know'st that all my fortunes are at sea; Neither have I money nor commodity To raise a present sum: therefore go forth; Try what my credit can in Venice do: That shall be rack'd, even to the uttermost, To furnish thee to Belmont, to fair Portia. Go, presently inquire, and so will I, Where money is, and I no question make To have it of my trust or for my sake. [Exeunt] THE MERCHANT OF VENICE ACT I SCENE II: Belmont. A room in PORTIA'S house. [Enter PORTIA and NERISSA] PORTIA By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary of this great world. NERISSA You would be, sweet madam, if your miseries were in the same abundance as your good fortunes are: and yet, for aught I see, they are as sick that surfeit with too much as they that starve with nothing. It is no mean happiness therefore, to be seated in the mean: superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer. PORTIA Good sentences and well pronounced. NERISSA They would be better, if well followed. PORTIA If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches and poor men's cottages princes' palaces. It is a good divine that follows his own instructions: I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching. The brain may devise laws for the blood, but a hot temper leaps o'er a cold decree: such a hare is madness the youth, to skip o'er the meshes of good counsel the cripple. But this reasoning is not in the fashion to choose me a husband. O me, the word 'choose!' I may neither choose whom I would nor refuse whom I dislike; so is the will of a living daughter curbed by the will of a dead father. Is it not hard, Nerissa, that I cannot choose one nor refuse none? NERISSA Your father was ever virtuous; and holy men at their death have good inspirations: therefore the lottery, that he hath devised in these three chests of gold, silver and lead, whereof who chooses his meaning chooses you, will, no doubt, never be chosen by any rightly but one who shall rightly love. But what warmth is there in your affection towards any of these princely suitors that are already come? PORTIA I pray thee, over-name them; and as thou namest them, I will describe them; and, according to my description, level at my affection. NERISSA First, there is the Neapolitan prince. PORTIA Ay, that's a colt indeed, for he doth nothing but talk of his horse; and he makes it a great appropriation to his own good parts, that he can shoe him himself. I am much afeard my lady his mother played false with a smith. NERISSA Then there is the County Palatine. PORTIA He doth nothing but frown, as who should say 'If you will not have me, choose:' he hears merry tales and smiles not: I fear he will prove the weeping philosopher when he grows old, being so full of unmannerly sadness in his youth. I had rather be married to a death's-head with a bone in his mouth than to either of these. God defend me from these two! NERISSA How say you by the French lord, Monsieur Le Bon? PORTIA God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man. In truth, I know it is a sin to be a mocker: but, he! why, he hath a horse better than the Neapolitan's, a better bad habit of frowning than the Count Palatine; he is every man in no man; if a throstle sing, he falls straight a capering: he will fence with his own shadow: if I should marry him, I should marry twenty husbands. If he would despise me I would forgive him, for if he love me to madness, I shall never requite him. NERISSA What say you, then, to Falconbridge, the young baron of England? PORTIA You know I say nothing to him, for he understands not me, nor I him: he hath neither Latin, French, nor Italian, and you will come into the court and swear that I have a poor pennyworth in the English. He is a proper man's picture, but, alas, who can converse with a dumb-show? How oddly he is suited! I think he bought his doublet in Italy, his round hose in France, his bonnet in Germany and his behavior every where. NERISSA What think you of the Scottish lord, his neighbour? PORTIA That he hath a neighbourly charity in him, for he borrowed a box of the ear of the Englishman and swore he would pay him again when he was able: I think the Frenchman became his surety and sealed under for another. NERISSA How like you the young German, the Duke of Saxony's nephew? PORTIA Very vilely in the morning, when he is sober, and most vilely in the afternoon, when he is drunk: when he is best, he is a little worse than a man, and when he is worst, he is little better than a beast: and the worst fall that ever fell, I hope I shall make shift to go without him. NERISSA If he should offer to choose, and choose the right casket, you should refuse to perform your father's will, if you should refuse to accept him. PORTIA Therefore, for fear of the worst, I pray thee, set a deep glass of rhenish wine on the contrary casket, for if the devil be within and that temptation without, I know he will choose it. I will do any thing, Nerissa, ere I'll be married to a sponge. NERISSA You need not fear, lady, the having any of these lords: they have acquainted me with their determinations; which is, indeed, to return to their home and to trouble you with no more suit, unless you may be won by some other sort than your father's imposition depending on the caskets. PORTIA If I live to be as old as Sibylla, I will die as chaste as Diana, unless I be obtained by the manner of my father's will. I am glad this parcel of wooers are so reasonable, for there is not one among them but I dote on his very absence, and I pray God grant them a fair departure. NERISSA Do you not remember, lady, in your father's time, a Venetian, a scholar and a soldier, that came hither in company of the Marquis of Montferrat? PORTIA Yes, yes, it was Bassanio; as I think, he was so called. NERISSA True, madam: he, of all the men that ever my foolish eyes looked upon, was the best deserving a fair lady. PORTIA I remember him well, and I remember him worthy of thy praise. [Enter a Serving-man] How now! what news? Servant The four strangers seek for you, madam, to take their leave: and there is a forerunner come from a fifth, the Prince of Morocco, who brings word the prince his master will be here to-night. PORTIA If I could bid the fifth welcome with so good a heart as I can bid the other four farewell, I should be glad of his approach: if he have the condition of a saint and the complexion of a devil, I had rather he should shrive me than wive me. Come, Nerissa. Sirrah, go before. Whiles we shut the gates upon one wooer, another knocks at the door. [Exeunt] THE MERCHANT OF VENICE ACT I SCENE III Venice. A public place. [Enter BASSANIO and SHYLOCK] SHYLOCK Three thousand ducats; well. BASSANIO Ay, sir, for three months. SHYLOCK For three months; well. BASSANIO For the which, as I told you, Antonio shall be bound. SHYLOCK Antonio shall become bound; well. BASSANIO May you stead me? will you pleasure me? shall I know your answer? SHYLOCK Three thousand ducats for three months and Antonio bound. BASSANIO Your answer to that. SHYLOCK Antonio is a good man. BASSANIO Have you heard any imputation to the contrary? SHYLOCK Oh, no, no, no, no: my meaning in saying he is a good man is to have you understand me that he is sufficient. Yet his means are in supposition: he hath an argosy bound to Tripolis, another to the Indies; I understand moreover, upon the Rialto, he hath a third at Mexico, a fourth for England, and other ventures he hath, squandered abroad. But ships are but boards, sailors but men: there be land-rats and water-rats, water-thieves and land-thieves, I mean pirates, and then there is the peril of waters, winds and rocks. The man is, notwithstanding, sufficient. Three thousand ducats; I think I may take his bond. BASSANIO Be assured you may. SHYLOCK I will be assured I may; and, that I may be assured, I will bethink me. May I speak with Antonio? BASSANIO If it please you to dine with us. SHYLOCK Yes, to smell pork; to eat of the habitation which your prophet the Nazarite conjured the devil into. I will buy with you, sell with you, talk with you, walk with you, and so following, but I will not eat with you, drink with you, nor pray with you. What news on the Rialto? Who is he comes here? [Enter ANTONIO] BASSANIO This is Signior Antonio. SHYLOCK [Aside] How like a fawning publican he looks! I hate him for he is a Christian, But more for that in low simplicity He lends out money gratis and brings down The rate of usance here with us in Venice. If I can catch him once upon the hip, I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him. He hates our sacred nation, and he rails, Even there where merchants most do congregate, On me, my bargains and my well-won thrift, Which he calls interest. Cursed be my tribe, If I forgive him! BASSANIO Shylock, do you hear? SHYLOCK I am debating of my present store, And, by the near guess of my memory, I cannot instantly raise up the gross Of full three thousand ducats. What of that? Tubal, a wealthy Hebrew of my tribe, Will furnish me. But soft! how many months Do you desire? [To ANTONIO] Rest you fair, good signior; Your worship was the last man in our mouths. ANTONIO Shylock, although I neither lend nor borrow By taking nor by giving of excess, Yet, to supply the ripe wants of my friend, I'll break a custom. Is he yet possess'd How much ye would? SHYLOCK Ay, ay, three thousand ducats. ANTONIO And for three months. SHYLOCK I had forgot; three months; you told me so. Well then, your bond; and let me see; but hear you; Methought you said you neither lend nor borrow Upon advantage. ANTONIO I do never use it. SHYLOCK When Jacob grazed his uncle Laban's sheep-- This Jacob from our holy Abram was, As his wise mother wrought in his behalf, The third possessor; ay, he was the third-- ANTONIO And what of him? did he take interest? SHYLOCK No, not take interest, not, as you would say, Directly interest: mark what Jacob did. When Laban and himself were compromised That all the eanlings which were streak'd and pied Should fall as Jacob's hire, the ewes, being rank, In the end of autumn turned to the rams, And, when the work of generation was Between these woolly breeders in the act, The skilful shepherd peel'd me certain wands, And, in the doing of the deed of kind, He stuck them up before the fulsome ewes, Who then conceiving did in eaning time Fall parti-colour'd lambs, and those were Jacob's. This was a way to thrive, and he was blest: And thrift is blessing, if men steal it not. ANTONIO This was a venture, sir, that Jacob served for; A thing not in his power to bring to pass, But sway'd and fashion'd by the hand of heaven. Was this inserted to make interest good? Or is your gold and silver ewes and rams? SHYLOCK I cannot tell; I make it breed as fast: But note me, signior. ANTONIO Mark you this, Bassanio, The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose. An evil soul producing holy witness Is like a villain with a smiling cheek, A goodly apple rotten at the heart: O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath! SHYLOCK Three thousand ducats; 'tis a good round sum. Three months from twelve; then, let me see; the rate-- ANTONIO Well, Shylock, shall we be beholding to you? SHYLOCK Signior Antonio, many a time and oft In the Rialto you have rated me About my moneys and my usances: Still have I borne it with a patient shrug, For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe. You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog, And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine, And all for use of that which is mine own. Well then, it now appears you need my help: Go to, then; you come to me, and you say 'Shylock, we would have moneys:' you say so; You, that did void your rheum upon my beard And foot me as you spurn a stranger cur Over your threshold: moneys is your suit What should I say to you? Should I not say 'Hath a dog money? is it possible A cur can lend three thousand ducats?' Or Shall I bend low and in a bondman's key, With bated breath and whispering humbleness, Say this; 'Fair sir, you spit on me on Wednesday last; You spurn'd me such a day; another time You call'd me dog; and for these courtesies I'll lend you thus much moneys'? ANTONIO I am as like to call thee so again, To spit on thee again, to spurn thee too. If thou wilt lend this money, lend it not As to thy friends; for when did friendship take A breed for barren metal of his friend? But lend it rather to thine enemy, Who, if he break, thou mayst with better face Exact the penalty. SHYLOCK Why, look you, how you storm! I would be friends with you and have your love, Forget the shames that you have stain'd me with, Supply your present wants and take no doit Of usance for my moneys, and you'll not hear me: This is kind I offer. BASSANIO This were kindness. SHYLOCK This kindness will I show. Go with me to a notary, seal me there Your single bond; and, in a merry sport, If you repay me not on such a day, In such a place, such sum or sums as are Express'd in the condition, let the forfeit Be nominated for an equal pound Of your fair flesh, to be cut off and taken In what part of your body pleaseth me. ANTONIO Content, i' faith: I'll seal to such a bond And say there is much kindness in the Jew. BASSANIO You shall not seal to such a bond for me: I'll rather dwell in my necessity. ANTONIO Why, fear not, man; I will not forfeit it: Within these two months, that's a month before This bond expires, I do expect return Of thrice three times the value of this bond. SHYLOCK O father Abram, what these Christians are, Whose own hard dealings teaches them suspect The thoughts of others! Pray you, tell me this; If he should break his day, what should I gain By the exaction of the forfeiture? A pound of man's flesh taken from a man Is not so estimable, profitable neither, As flesh of muttons, beefs, or goats. I say, To buy his favour, I extend this friendship: If he will take it, so; if not, adieu; And, for my love, I pray you wrong me not. ANTONIO Yes Shylock, I will seal unto this bond. SHYLOCK Then meet me forthwith at the notary's; Give him direction for this merry bond, And I will go and purse the ducats straight, See to my house, left in the fearful guard Of an unthrifty knave, and presently I will be with you. ANTONIO Hie thee, gentle Jew. [Exit Shylock] The Hebrew will turn Christian: he grows kind. BASSANIO I like not fair terms and a villain's mind. ANTONIO Come on: in this there can be no dismay; My ships come home a month before the day. [Exeunt] THE MERCHANT OF VENICE ACT II SCENE I Belmont. A room in PORTIA'S house. [Flourish of cornets. Enter the PRINCE OF MOROCCO and his train; PORTIA, NERISSA, and others attending] MOROCCO Mislike me not for my complexion, The shadow'd livery of the burnish'd sun, To whom I am a neighbour and near bred. Bring me the fairest creature northward born, Where Phoebus' fire scarce thaws the icicles, And let us make incision for your love, To prove whose blood is reddest, his or mine. I tell thee, lady, this aspect of mine Hath fear'd the valiant: by my love I swear The best-regarded virgins of our clime Have loved it too: I would not change this hue, Except to steal your thoughts, my gentle queen. PORTIA In terms of choice I am not solely led By nice direction of a maiden's eyes; Besides, the lottery of my destiny Bars me the right of voluntary choosing: But if my father had not scanted me And hedged me by his wit, to yield myself His wife who wins me by that means I told you, Yourself, renowned prince, then stood as fair As any comer I have look'd on yet For my affection. MOROCCO Even for that I thank you: Therefore, I pray you, lead me to the caskets To try my fortune. By this scimitar That slew the Sophy and a Persian prince That won three fields of Sultan Solyman, I would outstare the sternest eyes that look, Outbrave the heart most daring on the earth, Pluck the young sucking cubs from the she-bear, Yea, mock the lion when he roars for prey, To win thee, lady. But, alas the while! If Hercules and Lichas play at dice Which is the better man, the greater throw May turn by fortune from the weaker hand: So is Alcides beaten by his page; And so may I, blind fortune leading me, Miss that which one unworthier may attain, And die with grieving. PORTIA You must take your chance, And either not attempt to choose at all Or swear before you choose, if you choose wrong Never to speak to lady afterward In way of marriage: therefore be advised. MOROCCO Nor will not. Come, bring me unto my chance. PORTIA First, forward to the temple: after dinner Your hazard shall be made. MOROCCO Good fortune then! To make me blest or cursed'st among men. [Cornets, and exeunt] THE MERCHANT OF VENICE ACT II SCENE II Venice. A street. [Enter LAUNCELOT] LAUNCELOT Certainly my conscience will serve me to run from this Jew my master. The fiend is at mine elbow and tempts me saying to me 'Gobbo, Launcelot Gobbo, good Launcelot,' or 'good Gobbo,' or good Launcelot Gobbo, use your legs, take the start, run away. My conscience says 'No; take heed,' honest Launcelot; take heed, honest Gobbo, or, as aforesaid, 'honest Launcelot Gobbo; do not run; scorn running with thy heels.' Well, the most courageous fiend bids me pack: 'Via!' says the fiend; 'away!' says the fiend; 'for the heavens, rouse up a brave mind,' says the fiend, 'and run.' Well, my conscience, hanging about the neck of my heart, says very wisely to me 'My honest friend Launcelot, being an honest man's son,' or rather an honest woman's son; for, indeed, my father did something smack, something grow to, he had a kind of taste; well, my conscience says 'Launcelot, budge not.' 'Budge,' says the fiend. 'Budge not,' says my conscience. 'Conscience,' say I, 'you counsel well;' ' Fiend,' say I, 'you counsel well:' to be ruled by my conscience, I should stay with the Jew my master, who, God bless the mark, is a kind of devil; and, to run away from the Jew, I should be ruled by the fiend, who, saving your reverence, is the devil himself. Certainly the Jew is the very devil incarnal; and, in my conscience, my conscience is but a kind of hard conscience, to offer to counsel me to stay with the Jew. The fiend gives the more friendly counsel: I will run, fiend; my heels are at your command; I will run. [Enter Old GOBBO, with a basket] GOBBO Master young man, you, I pray you, which is the way to master Jew's? LAUNCELOT [Aside] O heavens, this is my true-begotten father! who, being more than sand-blind, high-gravel blind, knows me not: I will try confusions with him. GOBBO Master young gentleman, I pray you, which is the way to master Jew's? LAUNCELOT Turn up on your right hand at the next turning, but, at the next turning of all, on your left; marry, at the very next turning, turn of no hand, but turn down indirectly to the Jew's house. GOBBO By God's sonties, 'twill be a hard way to hit. Can you tell me whether one Launcelot, that dwells with him, dwell with him or no? LAUNCELOT Talk you of young Master Launcelot? [Aside] Mark me now; now will I raise the waters. Talk you of young Master Launcelot? GOBBO No master, sir, but a poor man's son: his father, though I say it, is an honest exceeding poor man and, God be thanked, well to live. LAUNCELOT Well, let his father be what a' will, we talk of young Master Launcelot. GOBBO Your worship's friend and Launcelot, sir. LAUNCELOT But I pray you, ergo, old man, ergo, I beseech you, talk you of young Master Launcelot? GOBBO Of Launcelot, an't please your mastership. LAUNCELOT Ergo, Master Launcelot. Talk not of Master Launcelot, father; for the young gentleman, according to Fates and Destinies and such odd sayings, the Sisters Three and such branches of learning, is indeed deceased, or, as you would say in plain terms, gone to heaven. GOBBO Marry, God forbid! the boy was the very staff of my age, my very prop. LAUNCELOT Do I look like a cudgel or a hovel-post, a staff or a prop? Do you know me, father? GOBBO Alack the day, I know you not, young gentleman: but, I pray you, tell me, is my boy, God rest his soul, alive or dead? LAUNCELOT Do you not know me, father? GOBBO Alack, sir, I am sand-blind; I know you not. LAUNCELOT Nay, indeed, if you had your eyes, you might fail of the knowing me: it is a wise father that knows his own child. Well, old man, I will tell you news of your son: give me your blessing: truth will come to light; murder cannot be hid long; a man's son may, but at the length truth will out. GOBBO Pray you, sir, stand up: I am sure you are not Launcelot, my boy. LAUNCELOT Pray you, let's have no more fooling about it, but give me your blessing: I am Launcelot, your boy that was, your son that is, your child that shall be. GOBBO I cannot think you are my son. LAUNCELOT I know not what I shall think of that: but I am Launcelot, the Jew's man, and I am sure Margery your wife is my mother. GOBBO Her name is Margery, indeed: I'll be sworn, if thou be Launcelot, thou art mine own flesh and blood. Lord worshipped might he be! what a beard hast thou got! thou hast got more hair on thy chin than Dobbin my fill-horse has on his tail. LAUNCELOT It should seem, then, that Dobbin's tail grows backward: I am sure he had more hair of his tail than I have of my face when I last saw him. GOBBO Lord, how art thou changed! How dost thou and thy master agree? I have brought him a present. How 'gree you now? LAUNCELOT Well, well: but, for mine own part, as I have set up my rest to run away, so I will not rest till I have run some ground. My master's a very Jew: give him a present! give him a halter: I am famished in his service; you may tell every finger I have with my ribs. Father, I am glad you are come: give me your present to one Master Bassanio, who, indeed, gives rare new liveries: if I serve not him, I will run as far as God has any ground. O rare fortune! here comes the man: to him, father; for I am a Jew, if I serve the Jew any longer. [Enter BASSANIO, with LEONARDO and other followers] BASSANIO You may do so; but let it be so hasted that supper be ready at the farthest by five of the clock. See these letters delivered; put the liveries to making, and desire Gratiano to come anon to my lodging. [Exit a Servant] LAUNCELOT To him, father. GOBBO God bless your worship! BASSANIO Gramercy! wouldst thou aught with me? GOBBO Here's my son, sir, a poor boy,-- LAUNCELOT Not a poor boy, sir, but the rich Jew's man; that would, sir, as my father shall specify-- GOBBO He hath a great infection, sir, as one would say, to serve-- LAUNCELOT Indeed, the short and the long is, I serve the Jew, and have a desire, as my father shall specify-- GOBBO His master and he, saving your worship's reverence, are scarce cater-cousins-- LAUNCELOT To be brief, the very truth is that the Jew, having done me wrong, doth cause me, as my father, being, I hope, an old man, shall frutify unto you-- GOBBO I have here a dish of doves that I would bestow upon your worship, and my suit is-- LAUNCELOT In very brief, the suit is impertinent to myself, as your worship shall know by this honest old man; and, though I say it, though old man, yet poor man, my father. BASSANIO One speak for both. What would you? LAUNCELOT Serve you, sir. GOBBO That is the very defect of the matter, sir. BASSANIO I know thee well; thou hast obtain'd thy suit: Shylock thy master spoke with me this day, And hath preferr'd thee, if it be preferment To leave a rich Jew's service, to become The follower of so poor a gentleman. LAUNCELOT The old proverb is very well parted between my master Shylock and you, sir: you have the grace of God, sir, and he hath enough. BASSANIO Thou speak'st it well. Go, father, with thy son. Take leave of thy old master and inquire My lodging out. Give him a livery More guarded than his fellows': see it done. LAUNCELOT Father, in. I cannot get a service, no; I have ne'er a tongue in my head. Well, if any man in Italy have a fairer table which doth offer to swear upon a book, I shall have good fortune. Go to, here's a simple line of life: here's a small trifle of wives: alas, fifteen wives is nothing! eleven widows and nine maids is a simple coming-in for one man: and then to 'scape drowning thrice, and to be in peril of my life with the edge of a feather-bed; here are simple scapes. Well, if Fortune be a woman, she's a good wench for this gear. Father, come; I'll take my leave of the Jew in the twinkling of an eye. [Exeunt Launcelot and Old Gobbo] BASSANIO I pray thee, good Leonardo, think on this: These things being bought and orderly bestow'd, Return in haste, for I do feast to-night My best-esteem'd acquaintance: hie thee, go. LEONARDO My best endeavours shall be done herein. [Enter GRATIANO] GRATIANO Where is your master? LEONARDO Yonder, sir, he walks. [Exit] GRATIANO Signior Bassanio! BASSANIO Gratiano! GRATIANO I have a suit to you. BASSANIO You have obtain'd it. GRATIANO You must not deny me: I must go with you to Belmont. BASSANIO Why then you must. But hear thee, Gratiano; Thou art too wild, too rude and bold of voice; Parts that become thee happily enough And in such eyes as ours appear not faults; But where thou art not known, why, there they show Something too liberal. Pray thee, take pain To allay with some cold drops of modesty Thy skipping spirit, lest through thy wild behavior I be misconstrued in the place I go to, And lose my hopes. GRATIANO Signior Bassanio, hear me: If I do not put on a sober habit, Talk with respect and swear but now and then, Wear prayer-books in my pocket, look demurely, Nay more, while grace is saying, hood mine eyes Thus with my hat, and sigh and say 'amen,' Use all the observance of civility, Like one well studied in a sad ostent To please his grandam, never trust me more. BASSANIO Well, we shall see your bearing. GRATIANO Nay, but I bar to-night: you shall not gauge me By what we do to-night. BASSANIO No, that were pity: I would entreat you rather to put on Your boldest suit of mirth, for we have friends That purpose merriment. But fare you well: I have some business. GRATIANO And I must to Lorenzo and the rest: But we will visit you at supper-time. [Exeunt] THE MERCHANT OF VENICE ACT II SCENE III The same. A room in SHYLOCK'S house. [Enter JESSICA and LAUNCELOT] JESSICA I am sorry thou wilt leave my father so: Our house is hell, and thou, a merry devil, Didst rob it of some taste of tediousness. But fare thee well, there is a ducat for thee: And, Launcelot, soon at supper shalt thou see Lorenzo, who is thy new master's guest: Give him this letter; do it secretly; And so farewell: I would not have my father See me in talk with thee. LAUNCELOT Adieu! tears exhibit my tongue. Most beautiful pagan, most sweet Jew! if a Christian did not play the knave and get thee, I am much deceived. But, adieu: these foolish drops do something drown my manly spirit: adieu. JESSICA Farewell, good Launcelot. [Exit Launcelot] Alack, what heinous sin is it in me To be ashamed to be my father's child! But though I am a daughter to his blood, I am not to his manners. O Lorenzo, If thou keep promise, I shall end this strife, Become a Christian and thy loving wife. [Exit] THE MERCHANT OF VENICE ACT II SCENE IV The same. A street. [Enter GRATIANO, LORENZO, SALARINO, and SALANIO] LORENZO Nay, we will slink away in supper-time, Disguise us at my lodging and return, All in an hour. GRATIANO We have not made good preparation. SALARINO We have not spoke us yet of torchbearers. SALANIO 'Tis vile, unless it may be quaintly order'd, And better in my mind not undertook. LORENZO 'Tis now but four o'clock: we have two hours To furnish us. [Enter LAUNCELOT, with a letter] Friend Launcelot, what's the news? LAUNCELOT An it shall please you to break up this, it shall seem to signify. LORENZO I know the hand: in faith, 'tis a fair hand; And whiter than the paper it writ on Is the fair hand that writ. GRATIANO Love-news, in faith. LAUNCELOT By your leave, sir. LORENZO Whither goest thou? LAUNCELOT Marry, sir, to bid my old master the Jew to sup to-night with my new master the Christian. LORENZO Hold here, take this: tell gentle Jessica I will not fail her; speak it privately. Go, gentlemen, [Exit Launcelot] Will you prepare you for this masque tonight? I am provided of a torch-bearer. SALANIO Ay, marry, I'll be gone about it straight. SALANIO And so will I. LORENZO Meet me and Gratiano At Gratiano's lodging some hour hence. SALARINO 'Tis good we do so. [Exeunt SALARINO and SALANIO] GRATIANO Was not that letter from fair Jessica? LORENZO I must needs tell thee all. She hath directed How I shall take her from her father's house, What gold and jewels she is furnish'd with, What page's suit she hath in readiness. If e'er the Jew her father come to heaven, It will be for his gentle daughter's sake: And never dare misfortune cross her foot, Unless she do it under this excuse, That she is issue to a faithless Jew. Come, go with me; peruse this as thou goest: Fair Jessica shall be my torch-bearer. [Exeunt] THE MERCHANT OF VENICE ACT II SCENE V The same. Before SHYLOCK'S house. [Enter SHYLOCK and LAUNCELOT] SHYLOCK Well, thou shalt see, thy eyes shall be thy judge, The difference of old Shylock and Bassanio:-- What, Jessica!--thou shalt not gormandise, As thou hast done with me:--What, Jessica!-- And sleep and snore, and rend apparel out;-- Why, Jessica, I say! LAUNCELOT Why, Jessica! SHYLOCK Who bids thee call? I do not bid thee call. LAUNCELOT Your worship was wont to tell me that I could do nothing without bidding. [Enter Jessica] JESSICA Call you? what is your will? SHYLOCK I am bid forth to supper, Jessica: There are my keys. But wherefore should I go? I am not bid for love; they flatter me: But yet I'll go in hate, to feed upon The prodigal Christian. Jessica, my girl, Look to my house. I am right loath to go: There is some ill a-brewing towards my rest, For I did dream of money-bags to-night. LAUNCELOT I beseech you, sir, go: my young master doth expect your reproach. SHYLOCK So do I his. LAUNCELOT An they have conspired together, I will not say you shall see a masque; but if you do, then it was not for nothing that my nose fell a-bleeding on Black-Monday last at six o'clock i' the morning, falling out that year on Ash-Wednesday was four year, in the afternoon. SHYLOCK What, are there masques? Hear you me, Jessica: Lock up my doors; and when you hear the drum And the vile squealing of the wry-neck'd fife, Clamber not you up to the casements then, Nor thrust your head into the public street To gaze on Christian fools with varnish'd faces, But stop my house's ears, I mean my casements: Let not the sound of shallow foppery enter My sober house. By Jacob's staff, I swear, I have no mind of feasting forth to-night: But I will go. Go you before me, sirrah; Say I will come. LAUNCELOT I will go before, sir. Mistress, look out at window, for all this, There will come a Christian boy, will be worth a Jewess' eye. [Exit] SHYLOCK What says that fool of Hagar's offspring, ha? JESSICA His words were 'Farewell mistress;' nothing else. SHYLOCK The patch is kind enough, but a huge feeder; Snail-slow in profit, and he sleeps by day More than the wild-cat: drones hive not with me; Therefore I part with him, and part with him To one that would have him help to waste His borrow'd purse. Well, Jessica, go in; Perhaps I will return immediately: Do as I bid you; shut doors after you: Fast bind, fast find; A proverb never stale in thrifty mind. [Exit] JESSICA Farewell; and if my fortune be not crost, I have a father, you a daughter, lost. [Exit] THE MERCHANT OF VENICE ACT II SCENE VI The same. [Enter GRATIANO and SALARINO, masqued] GRATIANO This is the pent-house under which Lorenzo Desired us to make stand. SALARINO His hour is almost past. GRATIANO And it is marvel he out-dwells his hour, For lovers ever run before the clock. SALARINO O, ten times faster Venus' pigeons fly To seal love's bonds new-made, than they are wont To keep obliged faith unforfeited! GRATIANO That ever holds: who riseth from a feast With that keen appetite that he sits down? Where is the horse that doth untread again His tedious measures with the unbated fire That he did pace them first? All things that are, Are with more spirit chased than enjoy'd. How like a younker or a prodigal The scarfed bark puts from her native bay, Hugg'd and embraced by the strumpet wind! How like the prodigal doth she return, With over-weather'd ribs and ragged sails, Lean, rent and beggar'd by the strumpet wind! SALARINO Here comes Lorenzo: more of this hereafter. [Enter LORENZO] LORENZO Sweet friends, your patience for my long abode; Not I, but my affairs, have made you wait: When you shall please to play the thieves for wives, I'll watch as long for you then. Approach; Here dwells my father Jew. Ho! who's within? [Enter JESSICA, above, in boy's clothes] JESSICA Who are you? Tell me, for more certainty, Albeit I'll swear that I do know your tongue. LORENZO Lorenzo, and thy love. JESSICA Lorenzo, certain, and my love indeed, For who love I so much? And now who knows But you, Lorenzo, whether I am yours? LORENZO Heaven and thy thoughts are witness that thou art. JESSICA Here, catch this casket; it is worth the pains. I am glad 'tis night, you do not look on me, For I am much ashamed of my exchange: But love is blind and lovers cannot see The pretty follies that themselves commit; For if they could, Cupid himself would blush To see me thus transformed to a boy. LORENZO Descend, for you must be my torchbearer. JESSICA What, must I hold a candle to my shames? They in themselves, good-sooth, are too too light. Why, 'tis an office of discovery, love; And I should be obscured. LORENZO So are you, sweet, Even in the lovely garnish of a boy. But come at once; For the close night doth play the runaway, And we are stay'd for at Bassanio's feast. JESSICA I will make fast the doors, and gild myself With some more ducats, and be with you straight. [Exit above] GRATIANO Now, by my hood, a Gentile and no Jew. LORENZO Beshrew me but I love her heartily; For she is wise, if I can judge of her, And fair she is, if that mine eyes be true, And true she is, as she hath proved herself, And therefore, like herself, wise, fair and true, Shall she be placed in my constant soul. [Enter JESSICA, below] What, art thou come? On, gentlemen; away! Our masquing mates by this time for us stay. [Exit with Jessica and Salarino] [Enter ANTONIO] ANTONIO Who's there? GRATIANO Signior Antonio! ANTONIO Fie, fie, Gratiano! where are all the rest? 'Tis nine o'clock: our friends all stay for you. No masque to-night: the wind is come about; Bassanio presently will go aboard: I have sent twenty out to seek for you. GRATIANO I am glad on't: I desire no more delight Than to be under sail and gone to-night. [Exeunt] THE MERCHANT OF VENICE ACT II SCENE VII Belmont. A room in PORTIA'S house. [Flourish of cornets. Enter PORTIA, with the PRINCE OF MOROCCO, and their trains] PORTIA Go draw aside the curtains and discover The several caskets to this noble prince. Now make your choice. MOROCCO The first, of gold, who this inscription bears, 'Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire;' The second, silver, which this promise carries, 'Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves;' This third, dull lead, with warning all as blunt, 'Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.' How shall I know if I do choose the right? PORTIA The one of them contains my picture, prince: If you choose that, then I am yours withal. MOROCCO Some god direct my judgment! Let me see; I will survey the inscriptions back again. What says this leaden casket? 'Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.' Must give: for what? for lead? hazard for lead? This casket threatens. Men that hazard all Do it in hope of fair advantages: A golden mind stoops not to shows of dross; I'll then nor give nor hazard aught for lead. What says the silver with her virgin hue? 'Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.' As much as he deserves! Pause there, Morocco, And weigh thy value with an even hand: If thou be'st rated by thy estimation, Thou dost deserve enough; and yet enough May not extend so far as to the lady: And yet to be afeard of my deserving Were but a weak disabling of myself. As much as I deserve! Why, that's the lady: I do in birth deserve her, and in fortunes, In graces and in qualities of breeding; But more than these, in love I do deserve. What if I stray'd no further, but chose here? Let's see once more this saying graved in gold 'Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire.' Why, that's the lady; all the world desires her; From the four corners of the earth they come, To kiss this shrine, this mortal-breathing saint: The Hyrcanian deserts and the vasty wilds Of wide Arabia are as thoroughfares now For princes to come view fair Portia: The watery kingdom, whose ambitious head Spits in the face of heaven, is no bar To stop the foreign spirits, but they come, As o'er a brook, to see fair Portia. One of these three contains her heavenly picture. Is't like that lead contains her? 'Twere damnation To think so base a thought: it were too gross To rib her cerecloth in the obscure grave. Or shall I think in silver she's immured, Being ten times undervalued to tried gold? O sinful thought! Never so rich a gem Was set in worse than gold. They have in England A coin that bears the figure of an angel Stamped in gold, but that's insculp'd upon; But here an angel in a golden bed Lies all within. Deliver me the key: Here do I choose, and thrive I as I may! PORTIA There, take it, prince; and if my form lie there, Then I am yours. [He unlocks the golden casket] MOROCCO O hell! what have we here? A carrion Death, within whose empty eye There is a written scroll! I'll read the writing. [Reads] All that glitters is not gold; Often have you heard that told: Many a man his life hath sold But my outside to behold: Gilded tombs do worms enfold. Had you been as wise as bold, Young in limbs, in judgment old, Your answer had not been inscroll'd: Fare you well; your suit is cold. Cold, indeed; and labour lost: Then, farewell, heat, and welcome, frost! Portia, adieu. I have too grieved a heart To take a tedious leave: thus losers part. [Exit with his train. Flourish of cornets] PORTIA A gentle riddance. Draw the curtains, go. Let all of his complexion choose me so. [Exeunt] THE MERCHANT OF VENICE ACT II SCENE VIII Venice. A street. [Enter SALARINO and SALANIO] SALARINO Why, man, I saw Bassanio under sail: With him is Gratiano gone along; And in their ship I am sure Lorenzo is not. SALANIO The villain Jew with outcries raised the duke, Who went with him to search Bassanio's ship. SALARINO He came too late, the ship was under sail: But there the duke was given to understand That in a gondola were seen together Lorenzo and his amorous Jessica: Besides, Antonio certified the duke They were not with Bassanio in his ship. SALANIO I never heard a passion so confused, So strange, outrageous, and so variable, As the dog Jew did utter in the streets: 'My daughter! O my ducats! O my daughter! Fled with a Christian! O my Christian ducats! Justice! the law! my ducats, and my daughter! A sealed bag, two sealed bags of ducats, Of double ducats, stolen from me by my daughter! And jewels, two stones, two rich and precious stones, Stolen by my daughter! Justice! find the girl; She hath the stones upon her, and the ducats.' SALARINO Why, all the boys in Venice follow him, Crying, his stones, his daughter, and his ducats. SALANIO Let good Antonio look he keep his day, Or he shall pay for this. SALARINO Marry, well remember'd. I reason'd with a Frenchman yesterday, Who told me, in the narrow seas that part The French and English, there miscarried A vessel of our country richly fraught: I thought upon Antonio when he told me; And wish'd in silence that it were not his. SALANIO You were best to tell Antonio what you hear; Yet do not suddenly, for it may grieve him. SALARINO A kinder gentleman treads not the earth. I saw Bassanio and Antonio part: Bassanio told him he would make some speed Of his return: he answer'd, 'Do not so; Slubber not business for my sake, Bassanio But stay the very riping of the time; And for the Jew's bond which he hath of me, Let it not enter in your mind of love: Be merry, and employ your chiefest thoughts To courtship and such fair ostents of love As shall conveniently become you there:' And even there, his eye being big with tears, Turning his face, he put his hand behind him, And with affection wondrous sensible He wrung Bassanio's hand; and so they parted. SALANIO I think he only loves the world for him. I pray thee, let us go and find him out And quicken his embraced heaviness With some delight or other. SALARINO Do we so. [Exeunt] THE MERCHANT OF VENICE ACT II SCENE IX Belmont. A room in PORTIA'S house. [Enter NERISSA with a Servitor] NERISSA Quick, quick, I pray thee; draw the curtain straight: The Prince of Arragon hath ta'en his oath, And comes to his election presently. [Flourish of cornets. Enter the PRINCE OF ARRAGON, PORTIA, and their trains] PORTIA Behold, there stand the caskets, noble prince: If you choose that wherein I am contain'd, Straight shall our nuptial rites be solemnized: But if you fail, without more speech, my lord, You must be gone from hence immediately. ARRAGON I am enjoin'd by oath to observe three things: First, never to unfold to any one Which casket 'twas I chose; next, if I fail Of the right casket, never in my life To woo a maid in way of marriage: Lastly, If I do fail in fortune of my choice, Immediately to leave you and be gone. PORTIA To these injunctions every one doth swear That comes to hazard for my worthless self. ARRAGON And so have I address'd me. Fortune now To my heart's hope! Gold; silver; and base lead. 'Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.' You shall look fairer, ere I give or hazard. What says the golden chest? ha! let me see: 'Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire.' What many men desire! that 'many' may be meant By the fool multitude, that choose by show, Not learning more than the fond eye doth teach; Which pries not to the interior, but, like the martlet, Builds in the weather on the outward wall, Even in the force and road of casualty. I will not choose what many men desire, Because I will not jump with common spirits And rank me with the barbarous multitudes. Why, then to thee, thou silver treasure-house; Tell me once more what title thou dost bear: 'Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves:' And well said too; for who shall go about To cozen fortune and be honourable Without the stamp of merit? Let none presume To wear an undeserved dignity. O, that estates, degrees and offices Were not derived corruptly, and that clear honour Were purchased by the merit of the wearer! How many then should cover that stand bare! How many be commanded that command! How much low peasantry would then be glean'd From the true seed of honour! and how much honour Pick'd from the chaff and ruin of the times To be new-varnish'd! Well, but to my choice: 'Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.' I will assume desert. Give me a key for this, And instantly unlock my fortunes here. [He opens the silver casket] PORTIA Too long a pause for that which you find there. ARRAGON What's here? the portrait of a blinking idiot, Presenting me a schedule! I will read it. How much unlike art thou to Portia! How much unlike my hopes and my deservings! 'Who chooseth me shall have as much as he deserves.' Did I deserve no more than a fool's head? Is that my prize? are my deserts no better? PORTIA To offend, and judge, are distinct offices And of opposed natures. ARRAGON What is here? [Reads] The fire seven times tried this: Seven times tried that judgment is, That did never choose amiss. Some there be that shadows kiss; Such have but a shadow's bliss: There be fools alive, I wis, Silver'd o'er; and so was this. Take what wife you will to bed, I will ever be your head: So be gone: you are sped. Still more fool I shall appear By the time I linger here With one fool's head I came to woo, But I go away with two. Sweet, adieu. I'll keep my oath, Patiently to bear my wroth. [Exeunt Arragon and train] PORTIA Thus hath the candle singed the moth. O, these deliberate fools! when they do choose, They have the wisdom by their wit to lose. NERISSA The ancient saying is no heresy, Hanging and wiving goes by destiny. PORTIA Come, draw the curtain, Nerissa. [Enter a Servant] Servant Where is my lady? PORTIA Here: what would my lord? Servant Madam, there is alighted at your gate A young Venetian, one that comes before To signify the approaching of his lord; From whom he bringeth sensible regreets, To wit, besides commends and courteous breath, Gifts of rich value. Yet I have not seen So likely an ambassador of love: A day in April never came so sweet, To show how costly summer was at hand, As this fore-spurrer comes before his lord. PORTIA No more, I pray thee: I am half afeard Thou wilt say anon he is some kin to thee, Thou spend'st such high-day wit in praising him. Come, come, Nerissa; for I long to see Quick Cupid's post that comes so mannerly. NERISSA Bassanio, lord Love, if thy will it be! [Exeunt] THE MERCHANT OF VENICE ACT III SCENE I Venice. A street. [Enter SALANIO and SALARINO] SALANIO Now, what news on the Rialto? SALARINO Why, yet it lives there uncheck'd that Antonio hath a ship of rich lading wrecked on the narrow seas; the Goodwins, I think they call the place; a very dangerous flat and fatal, where the carcasses of many a tall ship lie buried, as they say, if my gossip Report be an honest woman of her word. SALANIO I would she were as lying a gossip in that as ever knapped ginger or made her neighbours believe she wept for the death of a third husband. But it is true, without any slips of prolixity or crossing the plain highway of talk, that the good Antonio, the honest Antonio,--O that I had a title good enough to keep his name company!-- SALARINO Come, the full stop. SALANIO Ha! what sayest thou? Why, the end is, he hath lost a ship. SALARINO I would it might prove the end of his losses. SALANIO Let me say 'amen' betimes, lest the devil cross my prayer, for here he comes in the likeness of a Jew. [Enter SHYLOCK] How now, Shylock! what news among the merchants? SHYLOCK You know, none so well, none so well as you, of my daughter's flight. SALARINO That's certain: I, for my part, knew the tailor that made the wings she flew withal. SALANIO And Shylock, for his own part, knew the bird was fledged; and then it is the complexion of them all to leave the dam. SHYLOCK She is damned for it. SALANIO That's certain, if the devil may be her judge. SHYLOCK My own flesh and blood to rebel! SALANIO Out upon it, old carrion! rebels it at these years? SHYLOCK I say, my daughter is my flesh and blood. SALARINO There is more difference between thy flesh and hers than between jet and ivory; more between your bloods than there is between red wine and rhenish. But tell us, do you hear whether Antonio have had any loss at sea or no? SHYLOCK There I have another bad match: a bankrupt, a prodigal, who dare scarce show his head on the Rialto; a beggar, that was used to come so smug upon the mart; let him look to his bond: he was wont to call me usurer; let him look to his bond: he was wont to lend money for a Christian courtesy; let him look to his bond. SALARINO Why, I am sure, if he forfeit, thou wilt not take his flesh: what's that good for? SHYLOCK To bait fish withal: if it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me, and hindered me half a million; laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies; and what's his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villany you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction. [Enter a Servant] Servant Gentlemen, my master Antonio is at his house and desires to speak with you both. SALARINO We have been up and down to seek him. [Enter TUBAL] SALANIO Here comes another of the tribe: a third cannot be matched, unless the devil himself turn Jew. [Exeunt SALANIO, SALARINO, and Servant] SHYLOCK How now, Tubal! what news from Genoa? hast thou found my daughter? TUBAL I often came where I did hear of her, but cannot find her. SHYLOCK Why, there, there, there, there! a diamond gone, cost me two thousand ducats in Frankfort! The curse never fell upon our nation till now; I never felt it till now: two thousand ducats in that; and other precious, precious jewels. I would my daughter were dead at my foot, and the jewels in her ear! would she were hearsed at my foot, and the ducats in her coffin! No news of them? Why, so: and I know not what's spent in the search: why, thou loss upon loss! the thief gone with so much, and so much to find the thief; and no satisfaction, no revenge: nor no in luck stirring but what lights on my shoulders; no sighs but of my breathing; no tears but of my shedding. TUBAL Yes, other men have ill luck too: Antonio, as I heard in Genoa,-- SHYLOCK What, what, what? ill luck, ill luck? TUBAL Hath an argosy cast away, coming from Tripolis. SHYLOCK I thank God, I thank God. Is't true, is't true? TUBAL I spoke with some of the sailors that escaped the wreck. SHYLOCK I thank thee, good Tubal: good news, good news! ha, ha! where? in Genoa? TUBAL Your daughter spent in Genoa, as I heard, in one night fourscore ducats. SHYLOCK Thou stickest a dagger in me: I shall never see my gold again: fourscore ducats at a sitting! fourscore ducats! TUBAL There came divers of Antonio's creditors in my company to Venice, that swear he cannot choose but break. SHYLOCK I am very glad of it: I'll plague him; I'll torture him: I am glad of it. TUBAL One of them showed me a ring that he had of your daughter for a monkey. SHYLOCK Out upon her! Thou torturest me, Tubal: it was my turquoise; I had it of Leah when I was a bachelor: I would not have given it for a wilderness of monkeys. TUBAL But Antonio is certainly undone. SHYLOCK Nay, that's true, that's very true. Go, Tubal, fee me an officer; bespeak him a fortnight before. I will have the heart of him, if he forfeit; for, were he out of Venice, I can make what merchandise I will. Go, go, Tubal, and meet me at our synagogue; go, good Tubal; at our synagogue, Tubal. [Exeunt] THE MERCHANT OF VENICE ACT III SCENE II Belmont. A room in PORTIA'S house. [Enter BASSANIO, PORTIA, GRATIANO, NERISSA, and Attendants] PORTIA I pray you, tarry: pause a day or two Before you hazard; for, in choosing wrong, I lose your company: therefore forbear awhile. There's something tells me, but it is not love, I would not lose you; and you know yourself, Hate counsels not in such a quality. But lest you should not understand me well,-- And yet a maiden hath no tongue but thought,-- I would detain you here some month or two Before you venture for me. I could teach you How to choose right, but I am then forsworn; So will I never be: so may you miss me; But if you do, you'll make me wish a sin, That I had been forsworn. Beshrew your eyes, They have o'erlook'd me and divided me; One half of me is yours, the other half yours, Mine own, I would say; but if mine, then yours, And so all yours. O, these naughty times Put bars between the owners and their rights! And so, though yours, not yours. Prove it so, Let fortune go to hell for it, not I. I speak too long; but 'tis to peize the time, To eke it and to draw it out in length, To stay you from election. BASSANIO Let me choose For as I am, I live upon the rack. PORTIA Upon the rack, Bassanio! then confess What treason there is mingled with your love. BASSANIO None but that ugly treason of mistrust, Which makes me fear the enjoying of my love: There may as well be amity and life 'Tween snow and fire, as treason and my love. PORTIA Ay, but I fear you speak upon the rack, Where men enforced do speak anything. BASSANIO Promise me life, and I'll confess the truth. PORTIA Well then, confess and live. BASSANIO 'Confess' and 'love' Had been the very sum of my confession: O happy torment, when my torturer Doth teach me answers for deliverance! But let me to my fortune and the caskets. PORTIA Away, then! I am lock'd in one of them: If you do love me, you will find me out. Nerissa and the rest, stand all aloof. Let music sound while he doth make his choice; Then, if he lose, he makes a swan-like end, Fading in music: that the comparison May stand more proper, my eye shall be the stream And watery death-bed for him. He may win; And what is music then? Then music is Even as the flourish when true subjects bow To a new-crowned monarch: such it is As are those dulcet sounds in break of day That creep into the dreaming bridegroom's ear, And summon him to marriage. Now he goes, With no less presence, but with much more love, Than young Alcides, when he did redeem The virgin tribute paid by howling Troy To the sea-monster: I stand for sacrifice The rest aloof are the Dardanian wives, With bleared visages, come forth to view The issue of the exploit. Go, Hercules! Live thou, I live: with much, much more dismay I view the fight than thou that makest the fray. [Music, whilst BASSANIO comments on the caskets to himself] SONG. Tell me where is fancy bred, Or in the heart, or in the head? How begot, how nourished? Reply, reply. It is engender'd in the eyes, With gazing fed; and fancy dies In the cradle where it lies. Let us all ring fancy's knell I'll begin it,--Ding, dong, bell. ALL Ding, dong, bell. BASSANIO So may the outward shows be least themselves: The world is still deceived with ornament. In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt, But, being seasoned with a gracious voice, Obscures the show of evil? In religion, What damned error, but some sober brow Will bless it and approve it with a text, Hiding the grossness with fair ornament? There is no vice so simple but assumes Some mark of virtue on his outward parts: How many cowards, whose hearts are all as false As stairs of sand, wear yet upon their chins The beards of Hercules and frowning Mars; Who, inward search'd, have livers white as milk; And these assume but valour's excrement To render them redoubted! Look on beauty, And you shall see 'tis purchased by the weight; Which therein works a miracle in nature, Making them lightest that wear most of it: So are those crisped snaky golden locks Which make such wanton gambols with the wind, Upon supposed fairness, often known To be the dowry of a second head, The skull that bred them in the sepulchre. Thus ornament is but the guiled shore To a most dangerous sea; the beauteous scarf Veiling an Indian beauty; in a word, The seeming truth which cunning times put on To entrap the wisest. Therefore, thou gaudy gold, Hard food for Midas, I will none of thee; Nor none of thee, thou pale and common drudge 'Tween man and man: but thou, thou meagre lead, Which rather threatenest than dost promise aught, Thy paleness moves me more than eloquence; And here choose I; joy be the consequence! PORTIA [Aside] How all the other passions fleet to air, As doubtful thoughts, and rash-embraced despair, And shuddering fear, and green-eyed jealousy! O love, Be moderate; allay thy ecstasy, In measure rein thy joy; scant this excess. I feel too much thy blessing: make it less, For fear I surfeit. BASSANIO What find I here? [Opening the leaden casket] Fair Portia's counterfeit! What demi-god Hath come so near creation? Move these eyes? Or whether, riding on the balls of mine, Seem they in motion? Here are sever'd lips, Parted with sugar breath: so sweet a bar Should sunder such sweet friends. Here in her hairs The painter plays the spider and hath woven A golden mesh to entrap the hearts of men, Faster than gnats in cobwebs; but her eyes,-- How could he see to do them? having made one, Methinks it should have power to steal both his And leave itself unfurnish'd. Yet look, how far The substance of my praise doth wrong this shadow In underprizing it, so far this shadow Doth limp behind the substance. Here's the scroll, The continent and summary of my fortune. [Reads] You that choose not by the view, Chance as fair and choose as true! Since this fortune falls to you, Be content and seek no new, If you be well pleased with this And hold your fortune for your bliss, Turn you where your lady is And claim her with a loving kiss. A gentle scroll. Fair lady, by your leave; I come by note, to give and to receive. Like one of two contending in a prize, That thinks he hath done well in people's eyes, Hearing applause and universal shout, Giddy in spirit, still gazing in a doubt Whether these pearls of praise be his or no; So, thrice fair lady, stand I, even so; As doubtful whether what I see be true, Until confirm'd, sign'd, ratified by you. PORTIA You see me, Lord Bassanio, where I stand, Such as I am: though for myself alone I would not be ambitious in my wish, To wish myself much better; yet, for you I would be trebled twenty times myself; A thousand times more fair, ten thousand times more rich; That only to stand high in your account, I might in virtue, beauties, livings, friends, Exceed account; but the full sum of me Is sum of something, which, to term in gross, Is an unlesson'd girl, unschool'd, unpractised; Happy in this, she is not yet so old But she may learn; happier than this, She is not bred so dull but she can learn; Happiest of all is that her gentle spirit Commits itself to yours to be directed, As from her lord, her governor, her king. Myself and what is mine to you and yours Is now converted: but now I was the lord Of this fair mansion, master of my servants, Queen o'er myself: and even now, but now, This house, these servants and this same myself Are yours, my lord: I give them with this ring; Which when you part from, lose, or give away, Let it presage the ruin of your love And be my vantage to exclaim on you. BASSANIO Madam, you have bereft me of all words, Only my blood speaks to you in my veins; And there is such confusion in my powers, As after some oration fairly spoke By a beloved prince, there doth appear Among the buzzing pleased multitude; Where every something, being blent together, Turns to a wild of nothing, save of joy, Express'd and not express'd. But when this ring Parts from this finger, then parts life from hence: O, then be bold to say Bassanio's dead! NERISSA My lord and lady, it is now our time, That have stood by and seen our wishes prosper, To cry, good joy: good joy, my lord and lady! GRATIANO My lord Bassanio and my gentle lady, I wish you all the joy that you can wish; For I am sure you can wish none from me: And when your honours mean to solemnize The bargain of your faith, I do beseech you, Even at that time I may be married too. BASSANIO With all my heart, so thou canst get a wife. GRATIANO I thank your lordship, you have got me one. My eyes, my lord, can look as swift as yours: You saw the mistress, I beheld the maid; You loved, I loved for intermission. No more pertains to me, my lord, than you. Your fortune stood upon the casket there, And so did mine too, as the matter falls; For wooing here until I sweat again, And sweating until my very roof was dry With oaths of love, at last, if promise last, I got a promise of this fair one here To have her love, provided that your fortune Achieved her mistress. PORTIA Is this true, Nerissa? NERISSA Madam, it is, so you stand pleased withal. BASSANIO And do you, Gratiano, mean good faith? GRATIANO Yes, faith, my lord. BASSANIO Our feast shall be much honour'd in your marriage. GRATIANO We'll play with them the first boy for a thousand ducats. NERISSA What, and stake down? GRATIANO No; we shall ne'er win at that sport, and stake down. But who comes here? Lorenzo and his infidel? What, and my old Venetian friend Salerio? [Enter LORENZO, JESSICA, and SALERIO, a Messenger from Venice] BASSANIO Lorenzo and Salerio, welcome hither; If that the youth of my new interest here Have power to bid you welcome. By your leave, I bid my very friends and countrymen, Sweet Portia, welcome. PORTIA So do I, my lord: They are entirely welcome. LORENZO I thank your honour. For my part, my lord, My purpose was not to have seen you here; But meeting with Salerio by the way, He did entreat me, past all saying nay, To come with him along. SALERIO I did, my lord; And I have reason for it. Signior Antonio Commends him to you. [Gives Bassanio a letter] BASSANIO Ere I ope his letter, I pray you, tell me how my good friend doth. SALERIO Not sick, my lord, unless it be in mind; Nor well, unless in mind: his letter there Will show you his estate. GRATIANO Nerissa, cheer yon stranger; bid her welcome. Your hand, Salerio: what's the news from Venice? How doth that royal merchant, good Antonio? I know he will be glad of our success; We are the Jasons, we have won the fleece. SALERIO I would you had won the fleece that he hath lost. PORTIA There are some shrewd contents in yon same paper, That steals the colour from Bassanio's cheek: Some dear friend dead; else nothing in the world Could turn so much the constitution Of any constant man. What, worse and worse! With leave, Bassanio: I am half yourself, And I must freely have the half of anything That this same paper brings you. BASSANIO O sweet Portia, Here are a few of the unpleasant'st words That ever blotted paper! Gentle lady, When I did first impart my love to you, I freely told you, all the wealth I had Ran in my veins, I was a gentleman; And then I told you true: and yet, dear lady, Rating myself at nothing, you shall see How much I was a braggart. When I told you My state was nothing, I should then have told you That I was worse than nothing; for, indeed, I have engaged myself to a dear friend, Engaged my friend to his mere enemy, To feed my means. Here is a letter, lady; The paper as the body of my friend, And every word in it a gaping wound, Issuing life-blood. But is it true, Salerio? Have all his ventures fail'd? What, not one hit? From Tripolis, from Mexico and England, From Lisbon, Barbary and India? And not one vessel 'scape the dreadful touch Of merchant-marring rocks? SALERIO Not one, my lord. Besides, it should appear, that if he had The present money to discharge the Jew, He would not take it. Never did I know A creature, that did bear the shape of man, So keen and greedy to confound a man: He plies the duke at morning and at night, And doth impeach the freedom of the state, If they deny him justice: twenty merchants, The duke himself, and the magnificoes Of greatest port, have all persuaded with him; But none can drive him from the envious plea Of forfeiture, of justice and his bond. JESSICA When I was with him I have heard him swear To Tubal and to Chus, his countrymen, That he would rather have Antonio's flesh Than twenty times the value of the sum That he did owe him: and I know, my lord, If law, authority and power deny not, It will go hard with poor Antonio. PORTIA Is it your dear friend that is thus in trouble? BASSANIO The dearest friend to me, the kindest man, The best-condition'd and unwearied spirit In doing courtesies, and one in whom The ancient Roman honour more appears Than any that draws breath in Italy. PORTIA What sum owes he the Jew? BASSANIO For me three thousand ducats. PORTIA What, no more? Pay him six thousand, and deface the bond; Double six thousand, and then treble that, Before a friend of this description Shall lose a hair through Bassanio's fault. First go with me to church and call me wife, And then away to Venice to your friend; For never shall you lie by Portia's side With an unquiet soul. You shall have gold To pay the petty debt twenty times over: When it is paid, bring your true friend along. My maid Nerissa and myself meantime Will live as maids and widows. Come, away! For you shall hence upon your wedding-day: Bid your friends welcome, show a merry cheer: Since you are dear bought, I will love you dear. But let me hear the letter of your friend. BASSANIO [Reads] Sweet Bassanio, my ships have all miscarried, my creditors grow cruel, my estate is very low, my bond to the Jew is forfeit; and since in paying it, it is impossible I should live, all debts are cleared between you and I, if I might but see you at my death. Notwithstanding, use your pleasure: if your love do not persuade you to come, let not my letter. PORTIA O love, dispatch all business, and be gone! BASSANIO Since I have your good leave to go away, I will make haste: but, till I come again, No bed shall e'er be guilty of my stay, No rest be interposer 'twixt us twain. [Exeunt] THE MERCHANT OF VENICE ACT III SCENE III Venice. A street. [Enter SHYLOCK, SALARINO, ANTONIO, and Gaoler] SHYLOCK Gaoler, look to him: tell not me of mercy; This is the fool that lent out money gratis: Gaoler, look to him. ANTONIO Hear me yet, good Shylock. SHYLOCK I'll have my bond; speak not against my bond: I have sworn an oath that I will have my bond. Thou call'dst me dog before thou hadst a cause; But, since I am a dog, beware my fangs: The duke shall grant me justice. I do wonder, Thou naughty gaoler, that thou art so fond To come abroad with him at his request. ANTONIO I pray thee, hear me speak. SHYLOCK I'll have my bond; I will not hear thee speak: I'll have my bond; and therefore speak no more. I'll not be made a soft and dull-eyed fool, To shake the head, relent, and sigh, and yield To Christian intercessors. Follow not; I'll have no speaking: I will have my bond. [Exit] SALARINO It is the most impenetrable cur That ever kept with men. ANTONIO Let him alone: I'll follow him no more with bootless prayers. He seeks my life; his reason well I know: I oft deliver'd from his forfeitures Many that have at times made moan to me; Therefore he hates me. SALARINO I am sure the duke Will never grant this forfeiture to hold. ANTONIO The duke cannot deny the course of law: For the commodity that strangers have With us in Venice, if it be denied, Will much impeach the justice of his state; Since that the trade and profit of the city Consisteth of all nations. Therefore, go: These griefs and losses have so bated me, That I shall hardly spare a pound of flesh To-morrow to my bloody creditor. Well, gaoler, on. Pray God, Bassanio come To see me pay his debt, and then I care not! [Exeunt] THE MERCHANT OF VENICE ACT III SCENE IV Belmont. A room in PORTIA'S house. [Enter PORTIA, NERISSA, LORENZO, JESSICA, and BALTHASAR] LORENZO Madam, although I speak it in your presence, You have a noble and a true conceit Of godlike amity; which appears most strongly In bearing thus the absence of your lord. But if you knew to whom you show this honour, How true a gentleman you send relief, How dear a lover of my lord your husband, I know you would be prouder of the work Than customary bounty can enforce you. PORTIA I never did repent for doing good, Nor shall not now: for in companions That do converse and waste the time together, Whose souls do bear an equal yoke Of love, There must be needs a like proportion Of lineaments, of manners and of spirit; Which makes me think that this Antonio, Being the bosom lover of my lord, Must needs be like my lord. If it be so, How little is the cost I have bestow'd In purchasing the semblance of my soul From out the state of hellish misery! This comes too near the praising of myself; Therefore no more of it: hear other things. Lorenzo, I commit into your hands The husbandry and manage of my house Until my lord's return: for mine own part, I have toward heaven breathed a secret vow To live in prayer and contemplation, Only attended by Nerissa here, Until her husband and my lord's return: There is a monastery two miles off; And there will we abide. I do desire you Not to deny this imposition; The which my love and some necessity Now lays upon you. LORENZO Madam, with all my heart; I shall obey you in all fair commands. PORTIA My people do already know my mind, And will acknowledge you and Jessica In place of Lord Bassanio and myself. And so farewell, till we shall meet again. LORENZO Fair thoughts and happy hours attend on you! JESSICA I wish your ladyship all heart's content. PORTIA I thank you for your wish, and am well pleased To wish it back on you: fare you well Jessica. [Exeunt JESSICA and LORENZO] Now, Balthasar, As I have ever found thee honest-true, So let me find thee still. Take this same letter, And use thou all the endeavour of a man In speed to Padua: see thou render this Into my cousin's hand, Doctor Bellario; And, look, what notes and garments he doth give thee, Bring them, I pray thee, with imagined speed Unto the tranect, to the common ferry Which trades to Venice. Waste no time in words, But get thee gone: I shall be there before thee. BALTHASAR Madam, I go with all convenient speed. [Exit] PORTIA Come on, Nerissa; I have work in hand That you yet know not of: we'll see our husbands Before they think of us. NERISSA Shall they see us? PORTIA They shall, Nerissa; but in such a habit, That they shall think we are accomplished With that we lack. I'll hold thee any wager, When we are both accoutred like young men, I'll prove the prettier fellow of the two, And wear my dagger with the braver grace, And speak between the change of man and boy With a reed voice, and turn two mincing steps Into a manly stride, and speak of frays Like a fine bragging youth, and tell quaint lies, How honourable ladies sought my love, Which I denying, they fell sick and died; I could not do withal; then I'll repent, And wish for all that, that I had not killed them; And twenty of these puny lies I'll tell, That men shall swear I have discontinued school Above a twelvemonth. I have within my mind A thousand raw tricks of these bragging Jacks, Which I will practise. NERISSA Why, shall we turn to men? PORTIA Fie, what a question's that, If thou wert near a lewd interpreter! But come, I'll tell thee all my whole device When I am in my coach, which stays for us At the park gate; and therefore haste away, For we must measure twenty miles to-day. [Exeunt] THE MERCHANT OF VENICE ACT III SCENE V The same. A garden. [Enter LAUNCELOT and JESSICA] LAUNCELOT Yes, truly; for, look you, the sins of the father are to be laid upon the children: therefore, I promise ye, I fear you. I was always plain with you, and so now I speak my agitation of the matter: therefore be of good cheer, for truly I think you are damned. There is but one hope in it that can do you any good; and that is but a kind of bastard hope neither. JESSICA And what hope is that, I pray thee? LAUNCELOT Marry, you may partly hope that your father got you not, that you are not the Jew's daughter. JESSICA That were a kind of bastard hope, indeed: so the sins of my mother should be visited upon me. LAUNCELOT Truly then I fear you are damned both by father and mother: thus when I shun Scylla, your father, I fall into Charybdis, your mother: well, you are gone both ways. JESSICA I shall be saved by my husband; he hath made me a Christian. LAUNCELOT Truly, the more to blame he: we were Christians enow before; e'en as many as could well live, one by another. This making Christians will raise the price of hogs: if we grow all to be pork-eaters, we shall not shortly have a rasher on the coals for money. [Enter LORENZO] JESSICA I'll tell my husband, Launcelot, what you say: here he comes. LORENZO I shall grow jealous of you shortly, Launcelot, if you thus get my wife into corners. JESSICA Nay, you need not fear us, Lorenzo: Launcelot and I are out. He tells me flatly, there is no mercy for me in heaven, because I am a Jew's daughter: and he says, you are no good member of the commonwealth, for in converting Jews to Christians, you raise the price of pork. LORENZO I shall answer that better to the commonwealth than you can the getting up of the negro's belly: the Moor is with child by you, Launcelot. LAUNCELOT It is much that the Moor should be more than reason: but if she be less than an honest woman, she is indeed more than I took her for. LORENZO How every fool can play upon the word! I think the best grace of wit will shortly turn into silence, and discourse grow commendable in none only but parrots. Go in, sirrah; bid them prepare for dinner. LAUNCELOT That is done, sir; they have all stomachs. LORENZO Goodly Lord, what a wit-snapper are you! then bid them prepare dinner. LAUNCELOT That is done too, sir; only 'cover' is the word. LORENZO Will you cover then, sir? LAUNCELOT Not so, sir, neither; I know my duty. LORENZO Yet more quarrelling with occasion! Wilt thou show the whole wealth of thy wit in an instant? I pray tree, understand a plain man in his plain meaning: go to thy fellows; bid them cover the table, serve in the meat, and we will come in to dinner. LAUNCELOT For the table, sir, it shall be served in; for the meat, sir, it shall be covered; for your coming in to dinner, sir, why, let it be as humours and conceits shall govern. [Exit] LORENZO O dear discretion, how his words are suited! The fool hath planted in his memory An army of good words; and I do know A many fools, that stand in better place, Garnish'd like him, that for a tricksy word Defy the matter. How cheerest thou, Jessica? And now, good sweet, say thy opinion, How dost thou like the Lord Bassanio's wife? JESSICA Past all expressing. It is very meet The Lord Bassanio live an upright life; For, having such a blessing in his lady, He finds the joys of heaven here on earth; And if on earth he do not mean it, then In reason he should never come to heaven Why, if two gods should play some heavenly match And on the wager lay two earthly women, And Portia one, there must be something else Pawn'd with the other, for the poor rude world Hath not her fellow. LORENZO Even such a husband Hast thou of me as she is for a wife. JESSICA Nay, but ask my opinion too of that. LORENZO I will anon: first, let us go to dinner. JESSICA Nay, let me praise you while I have a stomach. LORENZO No, pray thee, let it serve for table-talk; ' Then, howso'er thou speak'st, 'mong other things I shall digest it. JESSICA Well, I'll set you forth. [Exeunt] THE MERCHANT OF VENICE ACT IV SCENE I Venice. A court of justice. [Enter the DUKE, the Magnificoes, ANTONIO, BASSANIO, GRATIANO, SALERIO, and others] DUKE What, is Antonio here? ANTONIO Ready, so please your grace. DUKE I am sorry for thee: thou art come to answer A stony adversary, an inhuman wretch uncapable of pity, void and empty From any dram of mercy. ANTONIO I have heard Your grace hath ta'en great pains to qualify His rigorous course; but since he stands obdurate And that no lawful means can carry me Out of his envy's reach, I do oppose My patience to his fury, and am arm'd To suffer, with a quietness of spirit, The very tyranny and rage of his. DUKE Go one, and call the Jew into the court. SALERIO He is ready at the door: he comes, my lord. [Enter SHYLOCK] DUKE Make room, and let him stand before our face. Shylock, the world thinks, and I think so too, That thou but lead'st this fashion of thy malice To the last hour of act; and then 'tis thought Thou'lt show thy mercy and remorse more strange Than is thy strange apparent cruelty; And where thou now exact'st the penalty, Which is a pound of this poor merchant's flesh, Thou wilt not only loose the forfeiture, But, touch'd with human gentleness and love, Forgive a moiety of the principal; Glancing an eye of pity on his losses, That have of late so huddled on his back, Enow to press a royal merchant down And pluck commiseration of his state From brassy bosoms and rough hearts of flint, From stubborn Turks and Tartars, never train'd To offices of tender courtesy. We all expect a gentle answer, Jew. SHYLOCK I have possess'd your grace of what I purpose; And by our holy Sabbath have I sworn To have the due and forfeit of my bond: If you deny it, let the danger light Upon your charter and your city's freedom. You'll ask me, why I rather choose to have A weight of carrion flesh than to receive Three thousand ducats: I'll not answer that: But, say, it is my humour: is it answer'd? What if my house be troubled with a rat And I be pleased to give ten thousand ducats To have it baned? What, are you answer'd yet? Some men there are love not a gaping pig; Some, that are mad if they behold a cat; And others, when the bagpipe sings i' the nose, Cannot contain their urine: for affection, Mistress of passion, sways it to the mood Of what it likes or loathes. Now, for your answer: As there is no firm reason to be render'd, Why he cannot abide a gaping pig; Why he, a harmless necessary cat; Why he, a woollen bagpipe; but of force Must yield to such inevitable shame As to offend, himself being offended; So can I give no reason, nor I will not, More than a lodged hate and a certain loathing I bear Antonio, that I follow thus A losing suit against him. Are you answer'd? BASSANIO This is no answer, thou unfeeling man, To excuse the current of thy cruelty. SHYLOCK I am not bound to please thee with my answers. BASSANIO Do all men kill the things they do not love? SHYLOCK Hates any man the thing he would not kill? BASSANIO Every offence is not a hate at first. SHYLOCK What, wouldst thou have a serpent sting thee twice? ANTONIO I pray you, think you question with the Jew: You may as well go stand upon the beach And bid the main flood bate his usual height; You may as well use question with the wolf Why he hath made the ewe bleat for the lamb; You may as well forbid the mountain pines To wag their high tops and to make no noise, When they are fretten with the gusts of heaven; You may as well do anything most hard, As seek to soften that--than which what's harder?-- His Jewish heart: therefore, I do beseech you, Make no more offers, use no farther means, But with all brief and plain conveniency Let me have judgment and the Jew his will. BASSANIO For thy three thousand ducats here is six. SHYLOCK What judgment shall I dread, doing Were in six parts and every part a ducat, I would not draw them; I would have my bond. DUKE How shalt thou hope for mercy, rendering none? SHYLOCK What judgment shall I dread, doing no wrong? You have among you many a purchased slave, Which, like your asses and your dogs and mules, You use in abject and in slavish parts, Because you bought them: shall I say to you, Let them be free, marry them to your heirs? Why sweat they under burthens? let their beds Be made as soft as yours and let their palates Be season'd with such viands? You will answer 'The slaves are ours:' so do I answer you: The pound of flesh, which I demand of him, Is dearly bought; 'tis mine and I will have it. If you deny me, fie upon your law! There is no force in the decrees of Venice. I stand for judgment: answer; shall I have it? DUKE Upon my power I may dismiss this court, Unless Bellario, a learned doctor, Whom I have sent for to determine this, Come here to-day. SALERIO My lord, here stays without A messenger with letters from the doctor, New come from Padua. DUKE Bring us the letter; call the messenger. BASSANIO Good cheer, Antonio! What, man, courage yet! The Jew shall have my flesh, blood, bones and all, Ere thou shalt lose for me one drop of blood. ANTONIO I am a tainted wether of the flock, Meetest for death: the weakest kind of fruit Drops earliest to the ground; and so let me You cannot better be employ'd, Bassanio, Than to live still and write mine epitaph. [Enter NERISSA, dressed like a lawyer's clerk] DUKE Came you from Padua, from Bellario? NERISSA From both, my lord. Bellario greets your grace. [Presenting a letter] BASSANIO Why dost thou whet thy knife so earnestly? SHYLOCK To cut the forfeiture from that bankrupt there. GRATIANO Not on thy sole, but on thy soul, harsh Jew, Thou makest thy knife keen; but no metal can, No, not the hangman's axe, bear half the keenness Of thy sharp envy. Can no prayers pierce thee? SHYLOCK No, none that thou hast wit enough to make. GRATIANO O, be thou damn'd, inexecrable dog! And for thy life let justice be accused. Thou almost makest me waver in my faith To hold opinion with Pythagoras, That souls of animals infuse themselves Into the trunks of men: thy currish spirit Govern'd a wolf, who, hang'd for human slaughter, Even from the gallows did his fell soul fleet, And, whilst thou lay'st in thy unhallow'd dam, Infused itself in thee; for thy desires Are wolvish, bloody, starved and ravenous. SHYLOCK Till thou canst rail the seal from off my bond, Thou but offend'st thy lungs to speak so loud: Repair thy wit, good youth, or it will fall To cureless ruin. I stand here for law. DUKE This letter from Bellario doth commend A young and learned doctor to our court. Where is he? NERISSA He attendeth here hard by, To know your answer, whether you'll admit him. DUKE With all my heart. Some three or four of you Go give him courteous conduct to this place. Meantime the court shall hear Bellario's letter. Clerk [Reads] Your grace shall understand that at the receipt of your letter I am very sick: but in the instant that your messenger came, in loving visitation was with me a young doctor of Rome; his name is Balthasar. I acquainted him with the cause in controversy between the Jew and Antonio the merchant: we turned o'er many books together: he is furnished with my opinion; which, bettered with his own learning, the greatness whereof I cannot enough commend, comes with him, at my importunity, to fill up your grace's request in my stead. I beseech you, let his lack of years be no impediment to let him lack a reverend estimation; for I never knew so young a body with so old a head. I leave him to your gracious acceptance, whose trial shall better publish his commendation. DUKE You hear the learn'd Bellario, what he writes: And here, I take it, is the doctor come. [Enter PORTIA, dressed like a doctor of laws] Give me your hand. Come you from old Bellario? PORTIA I did, my lord. DUKE You are welcome: take your place. Are you acquainted with the difference That holds this present question in the court? PORTIA I am informed thoroughly of the cause. Which is the merchant here, and which the Jew? DUKE Antonio and old Shylock, both stand forth. PORTIA Is your name Shylock? SHYLOCK Shylock is my name. PORTIA Of a strange nature is the suit you follow; Yet in such rule that the Venetian law Cannot impugn you as you do proceed. You stand within his danger, do you not? ANTONIO Ay, so he says. PORTIA Do you confess the bond? ANTONIO I do. PORTIA Then must the Jew be merciful. SHYLOCK On what compulsion must I? tell me that. PORTIA The quality of mercy is not strain'd, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest; It blesseth him that gives and him that takes: 'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes The throned monarch better than his crown; His sceptre shows the force of temporal power, The attribute to awe and majesty, Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings; But mercy is above this sceptred sway; It is enthroned in the hearts of kings, It is an attribute to God himself; And earthly power doth then show likest God's When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew, Though justice be thy plea, consider this, That, in the course of justice, none of us Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy; And that same prayer doth teach us all to render The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much To mitigate the justice of thy plea; Which if thou follow, this strict court of Venice Must needs give sentence 'gainst the merchant there. SHYLOCK My deeds upon my head! I crave the law, The penalty and forfeit of my bond. PORTIA Is he not able to discharge the money? BASSANIO Yes, here I tender it for him in the court; Yea, twice the sum: if that will not suffice, I will be bound to pay it ten times o'er, On forfeit of my hands, my head, my heart: If this will not suffice, it must appear That malice bears down truth. And I beseech you, Wrest once the law to your authority: To do a great right, do a little wrong, And curb this cruel devil of his will. PORTIA It must not be; there is no power in Venice Can alter a decree established: 'Twill be recorded for a precedent, And many an error by the same example Will rush into the state: it cannot be. SHYLOCK A Daniel come to judgment! yea, a Daniel! O wise young judge, how I do honour thee! PORTIA I pray you, let me look upon the bond. SHYLOCK Here 'tis, most reverend doctor, here it is. PORTIA Shylock, there's thrice thy money offer'd thee. SHYLOCK An oath, an oath, I have an oath in heaven: Shall I lay perjury upon my soul? No, not for Venice. PORTIA Why, this bond is forfeit; And lawfully by this the Jew may claim A pound of flesh, to be by him cut off Nearest the merchant's heart. Be merciful: Take thrice thy money; bid me tear the bond. SHYLOCK When it is paid according to the tenor. It doth appear you are a worthy judge; You know the law, your exposition Hath been most sound: I charge you by the law, Whereof you are a well-deserving pillar, Proceed to judgment: by my soul I swear There is no power in the tongue of man To alter me: I stay here on my bond. ANTONIO Most heartily I do beseech the court To give the judgment. PORTIA Why then, thus it is: You must prepare your bosom for his knife. SHYLOCK O noble judge! O excellent young man! PORTIA For the intent and purpose of the law Hath full relation to the penalty, Which here appeareth due upon the bond. SHYLOCK 'Tis very true: O wise and upright judge! How much more elder art thou than thy looks! PORTIA Therefore lay bare your bosom. SHYLOCK Ay, his breast: So says the bond: doth it not, noble judge? 'Nearest his heart:' those are the very words. PORTIA It is so. Are there balance here to weigh The flesh? SHYLOCK I have them ready. PORTIA Have by some surgeon, Shylock, on your charge, To stop his wounds, lest he do bleed to death. SHYLOCK Is it so nominated in the bond? PORTIA It is not so express'd: but what of that? 'Twere good you do so much for charity. SHYLOCK I cannot find it; 'tis not in the bond. PORTIA You, merchant, have you any thing to say? ANTONIO But little: I am arm'd and well prepared. Give me your hand, Bassanio: fare you well! Grieve not that I am fallen to this for you; For herein Fortune shows herself more kind Than is her custom: it is still her use To let the wretched man outlive his wealth, To view with hollow eye and wrinkled brow An age of poverty; from which lingering penance Of such misery doth she cut me off. Commend me to your honourable wife: Tell her the process of Antonio's end; Say how I loved you, speak me fair in death; And, when the tale is told, bid her be judge Whether Bassanio had not once a love. Repent but you that you shall lose your friend, And he repents not that he pays your debt; For if the Jew do cut but deep enough, I'll pay it presently with all my heart. BASSANIO Antonio, I am married to a wife Which is as dear to me as life itself; But life itself, my wife, and all the world, Are not with me esteem'd above thy life: I would lose all, ay, sacrifice them all Here to this devil, to deliver you. PORTIA Your wife would give you little thanks for that, If she were by, to hear you make the offer. GRATIANO I have a wife, whom, I protest, I love: I would she were in heaven, so she could Entreat some power to change this currish Jew. NERISSA 'Tis well you offer it behind her back; The wish would make else an unquiet house. SHYLOCK These be the Christian husbands. I have a daughter; Would any of the stock of Barrabas Had been her husband rather than a Christian! [Aside] We trifle time: I pray thee, pursue sentence. PORTIA A pound of that same merchant's flesh is thine: The court awards it, and the law doth give it. SHYLOCK Most rightful judge! PORTIA And you must cut this flesh from off his breast: The law allows it, and the court awards it. SHYLOCK Most learned judge! A sentence! Come, prepare! PORTIA Tarry a little; there is something else. This bond doth give thee here no jot of blood; The words expressly are 'a pound of flesh:' Take then thy bond, take thou thy pound of flesh; But, in the cutting it, if thou dost shed One drop of Christian blood, thy lands and goods Are, by the laws of Venice, confiscate Unto the state of Venice. GRATIANO O upright judge! Mark, Jew: O learned judge! SHYLOCK Is that the law? PORTIA Thyself shalt see the act: For, as thou urgest justice, be assured Thou shalt have justice, more than thou desirest. GRATIANO O learned judge! Mark, Jew: a learned judge! SHYLOCK I take this offer, then; pay the bond thrice And let the Christian go. BASSANIO Here is the money. PORTIA Soft! The Jew shall have all justice; soft! no haste: He shall have nothing but the penalty. GRATIANO O Jew! an upright judge, a learned judge! PORTIA Therefore prepare thee to cut off the flesh. Shed thou no blood, nor cut thou less nor more But just a pound of flesh: if thou cut'st more Or less than a just pound, be it but so much As makes it light or heavy in the substance, Or the division of the twentieth part Of one poor scruple, nay, if the scale do turn But in the estimation of a hair, Thou diest and all thy goods are confiscate. GRATIANO A second Daniel, a Daniel, Jew! Now, infidel, I have you on the hip. PORTIA Why doth the Jew pause? take thy forfeiture. SHYLOCK Give me my principal, and let me go. BASSANIO I have it ready for thee; here it is. PORTIA He hath refused it in the open court: He shall have merely justice and his bond. GRATIANO A Daniel, still say I, a second Daniel! I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word. SHYLOCK Shall I not have barely my principal? PORTIA Thou shalt have nothing but the forfeiture, To be so taken at thy peril, Jew. SHYLOCK Why, then the devil give him good of it! I'll stay no longer question. PORTIA Tarry, Jew: The law hath yet another hold on you. It is enacted in the laws of Venice, If it be proved against an alien That by direct or indirect attempts He seek the life of any citizen, The party 'gainst the which he doth contrive Shall seize one half his goods; the other half Comes to the privy coffer of the state; And the offender's life lies in the mercy Of the duke only, 'gainst all other voice. In which predicament, I say, thou stand'st; For it appears, by manifest proceeding, That indirectly and directly too Thou hast contrived against the very life Of the defendant; and thou hast incurr'd The danger formerly by me rehearsed. Down therefore and beg mercy of the duke. GRATIANO Beg that thou mayst have leave to hang thyself: And yet, thy wealth being forfeit to the state, Thou hast not left the value of a cord; Therefore thou must be hang'd at the state's charge. DUKE That thou shalt see the difference of our spirits, I pardon thee thy life before thou ask it: For half thy wealth, it is Antonio's; The other half comes to the general state, Which humbleness may drive unto a fine. PORTIA Ay, for the state, not for Antonio. SHYLOCK Nay, take my life and all; pardon not that: You take my house when you do take the prop That doth sustain my house; you take my life When you do take the means whereby I live. PORTIA What mercy can you render him, Antonio? GRATIANO A halter gratis; nothing else, for God's sake. ANTONIO So please my lord the duke and all the court To quit the fine for one half of his goods, I am content; so he will let me have The other half in use, to render it, Upon his death, unto the gentleman That lately stole his daughter: Two things provided more, that, for this favour, He presently become a Christian; The other, that he do record a gift, Here in the court, of all he dies possess'd, Unto his son Lorenzo and his daughter. DUKE He shall do this, or else I do recant The pardon that I late pronounced here. PORTIA Art thou contented, Jew? what dost thou say? SHYLOCK I am content. PORTIA Clerk, draw a deed of gift. SHYLOCK I pray you, give me leave to go from hence; I am not well: send the deed after me, And I will sign it. DUKE Get thee gone, but do it. GRATIANO In christening shalt thou have two god-fathers: Had I been judge, thou shouldst have had ten more, To bring thee to the gallows, not the font. [Exit SHYLOCK] DUKE Sir, I entreat you home with me to dinner. PORTIA I humbly do desire your grace of pardon: I must away this night toward Padua, And it is meet I presently set forth. DUKE I am sorry that your leisure serves you not. Antonio, gratify this gentleman, For, in my mind, you are much bound to him. [Exeunt Duke and his train] BASSANIO Most worthy gentleman, I and my friend Have by your wisdom been this day acquitted Of grievous penalties; in lieu whereof, Three thousand ducats, due unto the Jew, We freely cope your courteous pains withal. ANTONIO And stand indebted, over and above, In love and service to you evermore. PORTIA He is well paid that is well satisfied; And I, delivering you, am satisfied And therein do account myself well paid: My mind was never yet more mercenary. I pray you, know me when we meet again: I wish you well, and so I take my leave. BASSANIO Dear sir, of force I must attempt you further: Take some remembrance of us, as a tribute, Not as a fee: grant me two things, I pray you, Not to deny me, and to pardon me. PORTIA You press me far, and therefore I will yield. [To ANTONIO] Give me your gloves, I'll wear them for your sake; [To BASSANIO] And, for your love, I'll take this ring from you: Do not draw back your hand; I'll take no more; And you in love shall not deny me this. BASSANIO This ring, good sir, alas, it is a trifle! I will not shame myself to give you this. PORTIA I will have nothing else but only this; And now methinks I have a mind to it. BASSANIO There's more depends on this than on the value. The dearest ring in Venice will I give you, And find it out by proclamation: Only for this, I pray you, pardon me. PORTIA I see, sir, you are liberal in offers You taught me first to beg; and now methinks You teach me how a beggar should be answer'd. BASSANIO Good sir, this ring was given me by my wife; And when she put it on, she made me vow That I should neither sell nor give nor lose it. PORTIA That 'scuse serves many men to save their gifts. An if your wife be not a mad-woman, And know how well I have deserved the ring, She would not hold out enemy for ever, For giving it to me. Well, peace be with you! [Exeunt Portia and Nerissa] ANTONIO My Lord Bassanio, let him have the ring: Let his deservings and my love withal Be valued against your wife's commandment. BASSANIO Go, Gratiano, run and overtake him; Give him the ring, and bring him, if thou canst, Unto Antonio's house: away! make haste. [Exit Gratiano] Come, you and I will thither presently; And in the morning early will we both Fly toward Belmont: come, Antonio. [Exeunt] THE MERCHANT OF VENICE ACT IV SCENE II The same. A street. [Enter PORTIA and NERISSA] PORTIA Inquire the Jew's house out, give him this deed And let him sign it: we'll away to-night And be a day before our husbands home: This deed will be well welcome to Lorenzo. [Enter GRATIANO] GRATIANO Fair sir, you are well o'erta'en My Lord Bassanio upon more advice Hath sent you here this ring, and doth entreat Your company at dinner. PORTIA That cannot be: His ring I do accept most thankfully: And so, I pray you, tell him: furthermore, I pray you, show my youth old Shylock's house. GRATIANO That will I do. NERISSA Sir, I would speak with you. [Aside to PORTIA] I'll see if I can get my husband's ring, Which I did make him swear to keep for ever. PORTIA [Aside to NERISSA] Thou mayst, I warrant. We shall have old swearing That they did give the rings away to men; But we'll outface them, and outswear them too. [Aloud] Away! make haste: thou knowist where I will tarry. NERISSA Come, good sir, will you show me to this house? [Exeunt] THE MERCHANT OF VENICE ACT V SCENE I Belmont. Avenue to PORTIA'S house. [Enter LORENZO and JESSICA] LORENZO The moon shines bright: in such a night as this, When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees And they did make no noise, in such a night Troilus methinks mounted the Troyan walls And sigh'd his soul toward the Grecian tents, Where Cressid lay that night. JESSICA In such a night Did Thisbe fearfully o'ertrip the dew And saw the lion's shadow ere himself And ran dismay'd away. LORENZO In such a night Stood Dido with a willow in her hand Upon the wild sea banks and waft her love To come again to Carthage. JESSICA In such a night Medea gather'd the enchanted herbs That did renew old AEson. LORENZO In such a night Did Jessica steal from the wealthy Jew And with an unthrift love did run from Venice As far as Belmont. JESSICA In such a night Did young Lorenzo swear he loved her well, Stealing her soul with many vows of faith And ne'er a true one. LORENZO In such a night Did pretty Jessica, like a little shrew, Slander her love, and he forgave it her. JESSICA I would out-night you, did no body come; But, hark, I hear the footing of a man. [Enter STEPHANO] LORENZO Who comes so fast in silence of the night? STEPHANO A friend. LORENZO A friend! what friend? your name, I pray you, friend? STEPHANO Stephano is my name; and I bring word My mistress will before the break of day Be here at Belmont; she doth stray about By holy crosses, where she kneels and prays For happy wedlock hours. LORENZO Who comes with her? STEPHANO None but a holy hermit and her maid. I pray you, is my master yet return'd? LORENZO He is not, nor we have not heard from him. But go we in, I pray thee, Jessica, And ceremoniously let us prepare Some welcome for the mistress of the house. [Enter LAUNCELOT] LAUNCELOT Sola, sola! wo ha, ho! sola, sola! LORENZO Who calls? LAUNCELOT Sola! did you see Master Lorenzo? Master Lorenzo, sola, sola! LORENZO Leave hollaing, man: here. LAUNCELOT Sola! where? where? LORENZO Here. LAUNCELOT Tell him there's a post come from my master, with his horn full of good news: my master will be here ere morning. [Exit] LORENZO Sweet soul, let's in, and there expect their coming. And yet no matter: why should we go in? My friend Stephano, signify, I pray you, Within the house, your mistress is at hand; And bring your music forth into the air. [Exit Stephano] How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank! Here will we sit and let the sounds of music Creep in our ears: soft stillness and the night Become the touches of sweet harmony. Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold: There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st But in his motion like an angel sings, Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins; Such harmony is in immortal souls; But whilst this muddy vesture of decay Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it. [Enter Musicians] Come, ho! and wake Diana with a hymn! With sweetest touches pierce your mistress' ear, And draw her home with music. [Music] JESSICA I am never merry when I hear sweet music. LORENZO The reason is, your spirits are attentive: For do but note a wild and wanton herd, Or race of youthful and unhandled colts, Fetching mad bounds, bellowing and neighing loud, Which is the hot condition of their blood; If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound, Or any air of music touch their ears, You shall perceive them make a mutual stand, Their savage eyes turn'd to a modest gaze By the sweet power of music: therefore the poet Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones and floods; Since nought so stockish, hard and full of rage, But music for the time doth change his nature. The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils; The motions of his spirit are dull as night And his affections dark as Erebus: Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music. [Enter PORTIA and NERISSA] PORTIA That light we see is burning in my hall. How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world. NERISSA When the moon shone, we did not see the candle. PORTIA So doth the greater glory dim the less: A substitute shines brightly as a king Unto the king be by, and then his state Empties itself, as doth an inland brook Into the main of waters. Music! hark! NERISSA It is your music, madam, of the house. PORTIA Nothing is good, I see, without respect: Methinks it sounds much sweeter than by day. NERISSA Silence bestows that virtue on it, madam. PORTIA The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark, When neither is attended, and I think The nightingale, if she should sing by day, When every goose is cackling, would be thought No better a musician than the wren. How many things by season season'd are To their right praise and true perfection! Peace, ho! the moon sleeps with Endymion And would not be awaked. [Music ceases] LORENZO That is the voice, Or I am much deceived, of Portia. PORTIA He knows me as the blind man knows the cuckoo, By the bad voice. LORENZO Dear lady, welcome home. PORTIA We have been praying for our husbands' healths, Which speed, we hope, the better for our words. Are they return'd? LORENZO Madam, they are not yet; But there is come a messenger before, To signify their coming. PORTIA Go in, Nerissa; Give order to my servants that they take No note at all of our being absent hence; Nor you, Lorenzo; Jessica, nor you. [A tucket sounds] LORENZO Your husband is at hand; I hear his trumpet: We are no tell-tales, madam; fear you not. PORTIA This night methinks is but the daylight sick; It looks a little paler: 'tis a day, Such as the day is when the sun is hid. [Enter BASSANIO, ANTONIO, GRATIANO, and their followers] BASSANIO We should hold day with the Antipodes, If you would walk in absence of the sun. PORTIA Let me give light, but let me not be light; For a light wife doth make a heavy husband, And never be Bassanio so for me: But God sort all! You are welcome home, my lord. BASSANIO I thank you, madam. Give welcome to my friend. This is the man, this is Antonio, To whom I am so infinitely bound. PORTIA You should in all sense be much bound to him. For, as I hear, he was much bound for you. ANTONIO No more than I am well acquitted of. PORTIA Sir, you are very welcome to our house: It must appear in other ways than words, Therefore I scant this breathing courtesy. GRATIANO [To NERISSA] By yonder moon I swear you do me wrong; In faith, I gave it to the judge's clerk: Would he were gelt that had it, for my part, Since you do take it, love, so much at heart. PORTIA A quarrel, ho, already! what's the matter? GRATIANO About a hoop of gold, a paltry ring That she did give me, whose posy was For all the world like cutler's poetry Upon a knife, 'Love me, and leave me not.' NERISSA What talk you of the posy or the value? You swore to me, when I did give it you, That you would wear it till your hour of death And that it should lie with you in your grave: Though not for me, yet for your vehement oaths, You should have been respective and have kept it. Gave it a judge's clerk! no, God's my judge, The clerk will ne'er wear hair on's face that had it. GRATIANO He will, an if he live to be a man. NERISSA Ay, if a woman live to be a man. GRATIANO Now, by this hand, I gave it to a youth, A kind of boy, a little scrubbed boy, No higher than thyself; the judge's clerk, A prating boy, that begg'd it as a fee: I could not for my heart deny it him. PORTIA You were to blame, I must be plain with you, To part so slightly with your wife's first gift: A thing stuck on with oaths upon your finger And so riveted with faith unto your flesh. I gave my love a ring and made him swear Never to part with it; and here he stands; I dare be sworn for him he would not leave it Nor pluck it from his finger, for the wealth That the world masters. Now, in faith, Gratiano, You give your wife too unkind a cause of grief: An 'twere to me, I should be mad at it. BASSANIO [Aside] Why, I were best to cut my left hand off And swear I lost the ring defending it. GRATIANO My Lord Bassanio gave his ring away Unto the judge that begg'd it and indeed Deserved it too; and then the boy, his clerk, That took some pains in writing, he begg'd mine; And neither man nor master would take aught But the two rings. PORTIA What ring gave you my lord? Not that, I hope, which you received of me. BASSANIO If I could add a lie unto a fault, I would deny it; but you see my finger Hath not the ring upon it; it is gone. PORTIA Even so void is your false heart of truth. By heaven, I will ne'er come in your bed Until I see the ring. NERISSA Nor I in yours Till I again see mine. BASSANIO Sweet Portia, If you did know to whom I gave the ring, If you did know for whom I gave the ring And would conceive for what I gave the ring And how unwillingly I left the ring, When nought would be accepted but the ring, You would abate the strength of your displeasure. PORTIA If you had known the virtue of the ring, Or half her worthiness that gave the ring, Or your own honour to contain the ring, You would not then have parted with the ring. What man is there so much unreasonable, If you had pleased to have defended it With any terms of zeal, wanted the modesty To urge the thing held as a ceremony? Nerissa teaches me what to believe: I'll die for't but some woman had the ring. BASSANIO No, by my honour, madam, by my soul, No woman had it, but a civil doctor, Which did refuse three thousand ducats of me And begg'd the ring; the which I did deny him And suffer'd him to go displeased away; Even he that did uphold the very life Of my dear friend. What should I say, sweet lady? I was enforced to send it after him; I was beset with shame and courtesy; My honour would not let ingratitude So much besmear it. Pardon me, good lady; For, by these blessed candles of the night, Had you been there, I think you would have begg'd The ring of me to give the worthy doctor. PORTIA Let not that doctor e'er come near my house: Since he hath got the jewel that I loved, And that which you did swear to keep for me, I will become as liberal as you; I'll not deny him any thing I have, No, not my body nor my husband's bed: Know him I shall, I am well sure of it: Lie not a night from home; watch me like Argus: If you do not, if I be left alone, Now, by mine honour, which is yet mine own, I'll have that doctor for my bedfellow. NERISSA And I his clerk; therefore be well advised How you do leave me to mine own protection. GRATIANO Well, do you so; let not me take him, then; For if I do, I'll mar the young clerk's pen. ANTONIO I am the unhappy subject of these quarrels. PORTIA Sir, grieve not you; you are welcome notwithstanding. BASSANIO Portia, forgive me this enforced wrong; And, in the hearing of these many friends, I swear to thee, even by thine own fair eyes, Wherein I see myself-- PORTIA Mark you but that! In both my eyes he doubly sees himself; In each eye, one: swear by your double self, And there's an oath of credit. BASSANIO Nay, but hear me: Pardon this fault, and by my soul I swear I never more will break an oath with thee. ANTONIO I once did lend my body for his wealth; Which, but for him that had your husband's ring, Had quite miscarried: I dare be bound again, My soul upon the forfeit, that your lord Will never more break faith advisedly. PORTIA Then you shall be his surety. Give him this And bid him keep it better than the other. ANTONIO Here, Lord Bassanio; swear to keep this ring. BASSANIO By heaven, it is the same I gave the doctor! PORTIA I had it of him: pardon me, Bassanio; For, by this ring, the doctor lay with me. NERISSA And pardon me, my gentle Gratiano; For that same scrubbed boy, the doctor's clerk, In lieu of this last night did lie with me. GRATIANO Why, this is like the mending of highways In summer, where the ways are fair enough: What, are we cuckolds ere we have deserved it? PORTIA Speak not so grossly. You are all amazed: Here is a letter; read it at your leisure; It comes from Padua, from Bellario: There you shall find that Portia was the doctor, Nerissa there her clerk: Lorenzo here Shall witness I set forth as soon as you And even but now return'd; I have not yet Enter'd my house. Antonio, you are welcome; And I have better news in store for you Than you expect: unseal this letter soon; There you shall find three of your argosies Are richly come to harbour suddenly: You shall not know by what strange accident I chanced on this letter. ANTONIO I am dumb. BASSANIO Were you the doctor and I knew you not? GRATIANO Were you the clerk that is to make me cuckold? NERISSA Ay, but the clerk that never means to do it, Unless he live until he be a man. BASSANIO Sweet doctor, you shall be my bed-fellow: When I am absent, then lie with my wife. ANTONIO Sweet lady, you have given me life and living; For here I read for certain that my ships Are safely come to road. PORTIA How now, Lorenzo! My clerk hath some good comforts too for you. NERISSA Ay, and I'll give them him without a fee. There do I give to you and Jessica, From the rich Jew, a special deed of gift, After his death, of all he dies possess'd of. LORENZO Fair ladies, you drop manna in the way Of starved people. PORTIA It is almost morning, And yet I am sure you are not satisfied Of these events at full. Let us go in; And charge us there upon inter'gatories, And we will answer all things faithfully. GRATIANO Let it be so: the first inter'gatory That my Nerissa shall be sworn on is, Whether till the next night she had rather stay, Or go to bed now, being two hours to day: But were the day come, I should wish it dark, That I were couching with the doctor's clerk. Well, while I live I'll fear no other thing So sore as keeping safe Nerissa's ring. [Exeunt] THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR DRAMATIS PERSONAE SIR JOHN FALSTAFF (FALSTAFF:) FENTON a gentleman. SHALLOW a country justice. SLENDER cousin to Shallow. FORD | | two gentlemen dwelling at Windsor. PAGE | WILLIAM PAGE a boy, son to Page. SIR HUGH EVANS a Welsh parson. DOCTOR CAIUS a French physician. Host of the Garter Inn. (Host:) BARDOLPH | | PISTOL | sharpers attending on Falstaff. | NYM | ROBIN page to Falstaff. SIMPLE servant to Slender. RUGBY servant to Doctor Caius. MISTRESS FORD: MISTRESS PAGE: ANNE PAGE her daughter. MISTRESS QUICKLY servant to Doctor Caius. Servants to Page, Ford, &c. (Servant:) (First Servant:) (Second Servant:) SCENE Windsor, and the neighbourhood. THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR ACT I SCENE I Windsor. Before PAGE's house. [Enter SHALLOW, SLENDER, and SIR HUGH EVANS] SHALLOW Sir Hugh, persuade me not; I will make a Star- chamber matter of it: if he were twenty Sir John Falstaffs, he shall not abuse Robert Shallow, esquire. SLENDER In the county of Gloucester, justice of peace and 'Coram.' SHALLOW Ay, cousin Slender, and 'Custalourum. SLENDER Ay, and 'Rato-lorum' too; and a gentleman born, master parson; who writes himself 'Armigero,' in any bill, warrant, quittance, or obligation, 'Armigero.' SHALLOW Ay, that I do; and have done any time these three hundred years. SLENDER All his successors gone before him hath done't; and all his ancestors that come after him may: they may give the dozen white luces in their coat. SHALLOW It is an old coat. SIR HUGH EVANS The dozen white louses do become an old coat well; it agrees well, passant; it is a familiar beast to man, and signifies love. SHALLOW The luce is the fresh fish; the salt fish is an old coat. SLENDER I may quarter, coz. SHALLOW You may, by marrying. SIR HUGH EVANS It is marring indeed, if he quarter it. SHALLOW Not a whit. SIR HUGH EVANS Yes, py'r lady; if he has a quarter of your coat, there is but three skirts for yourself, in my simple conjectures: but that is all one. If Sir John Falstaff have committed disparagements unto you, I am of the church, and will be glad to do my benevolence to make atonements and compremises between you. SHALLOW The council shall bear it; it is a riot. SIR HUGH EVANS It is not meet the council hear a riot; there is no fear of Got in a riot: the council, look you, shall desire to hear the fear of Got, and not to hear a riot; take your vizaments in that. SHALLOW Ha! o' my life, if I were young again, the sword should end it. SIR HUGH EVANS It is petter that friends is the sword, and end it: and there is also another device in my prain, which peradventure prings goot discretions with it: there is Anne Page, which is daughter to Master Thomas Page, which is pretty virginity. SLENDER Mistress Anne Page? She has brown hair, and speaks small like a woman. SIR HUGH EVANS It is that fery person for all the orld, as just as you will desire; and seven hundred pounds of moneys, and gold and silver, is her grandsire upon his death's-bed--Got deliver to a joyful resurrections! --give, when she is able to overtake seventeen years old: it were a goot motion if we leave our pribbles and prabbles, and desire a marriage between Master Abraham and Mistress Anne Page. SLENDER Did her grandsire leave her seven hundred pound? SIR HUGH EVANS Ay, and her father is make her a petter penny. SLENDER I know the young gentlewoman; she has good gifts. SIR HUGH EVANS Seven hundred pounds and possibilities is goot gifts. SHALLOW Well, let us see honest Master Page. Is Falstaff there? SIR HUGH EVANS Shall I tell you a lie? I do despise a liar as I do despise one that is false, or as I despise one that is not true. The knight, Sir John, is there; and, I beseech you, be ruled by your well-willers. I will peat the door for Master Page. [Knocks] What, hoa! Got pless your house here! PAGE [Within] Who's there? [Enter PAGE] SIR HUGH EVANS Here is Got's plessing, and your friend, and Justice Shallow; and here young Master Slender, that peradventures shall tell you another tale, if matters grow to your likings. PAGE I am glad to see your worships well. I thank you for my venison, Master Shallow. SHALLOW Master Page, I am glad to see you: much good do it your good heart! I wished your venison better; it was ill killed. How doth good Mistress Page?--and I thank you always with my heart, la! with my heart. PAGE Sir, I thank you. SHALLOW Sir, I thank you; by yea and no, I do. PAGE I am glad to see you, good Master Slender. SLENDER How does your fallow greyhound, sir? I heard say he was outrun on Cotsall. PAGE It could not be judged, sir. SLENDER You'll not confess, you'll not confess. SHALLOW That he will not. 'Tis your fault, 'tis your fault; 'tis a good dog. PAGE A cur, sir. SHALLOW Sir, he's a good dog, and a fair dog: can there be more said? he is good and fair. Is Sir John Falstaff here? PAGE Sir, he is within; and I would I could do a good office between you. SIR HUGH EVANS It is spoke as a Christians ought to speak. SHALLOW He hath wronged me, Master Page. PAGE Sir, he doth in some sort confess it. SHALLOW If it be confessed, it is not redress'd: is not that so, Master Page? He hath wronged me; indeed he hath, at a word, he hath, believe me: Robert Shallow, esquire, saith, he is wronged. PAGE Here comes Sir John. [Enter FALSTAFF, BARDOLPH, NYM, and PISTOL] FALSTAFF Now, Master Shallow, you'll complain of me to the king? SHALLOW Knight, you have beaten my men, killed my deer, and broke open my lodge. FALSTAFF But not kissed your keeper's daughter? SHALLOW Tut, a pin! this shall be answered. FALSTAFF I will answer it straight; I have done all this. That is now answered. SHALLOW The council shall know this. FALSTAFF 'Twere better for you if it were known in counsel: you'll be laughed at. SIR HUGH EVANS Pauca verba, Sir John; goot worts. FALSTAFF Good worts! good cabbage. Slender, I broke your head: what matter have you against me? SLENDER Marry, sir, I have matter in my head against you; and against your cony-catching rascals, Bardolph, Nym, and Pistol. BARDOLPH You Banbury cheese! SLENDER Ay, it is no matter. PISTOL How now, Mephostophilus! SLENDER Ay, it is no matter. NYM Slice, I say! pauca, pauca: slice! that's my humour. SLENDER Where's Simple, my man? Can you tell, cousin? SIR HUGH EVANS Peace, I pray you. Now let us understand. There is three umpires in this matter, as I understand; that is, Master Page, fidelicet Master Page; and there is myself, fidelicet myself; and the three party is, lastly and finally, mine host of the Garter. PAGE We three, to hear it and end it between them. SIR HUGH EVANS Fery goot: I will make a prief of it in my note- book; and we will afterwards ork upon the cause with as great discreetly as we can. FALSTAFF Pistol! PISTOL He hears with ears. SIR HUGH EVANS The tevil and his tam! what phrase is this, 'He hears with ear'? why, it is affectations. FALSTAFF Pistol, did you pick Master Slender's purse? SLENDER Ay, by these gloves, did he, or I would I might never come in mine own great chamber again else, of seven groats in mill-sixpences, and two Edward shovel-boards, that cost me two shilling and two pence apiece of Yead Miller, by these gloves. FALSTAFF Is this true, Pistol? SIR HUGH EVANS No; it is false, if it is a pick-purse. PISTOL Ha, thou mountain-foreigner! Sir John and Master mine, I combat challenge of this latten bilbo. Word of denial in thy labras here! Word of denial: froth and scum, thou liest! SLENDER By these gloves, then, 'twas he. NYM Be avised, sir, and pass good humours: I will say 'marry trap' with you, if you run the nuthook's humour on me; that is the very note of it. SLENDER By this hat, then, he in the red face had it; for though I cannot remember what I did when you made me drunk, yet I am not altogether an ass. FALSTAFF What say you, Scarlet and John? BARDOLPH Why, sir, for my part I say the gentleman had drunk himself out of his five sentences. SIR HUGH EVANS It is his five senses: fie, what the ignorance is! BARDOLPH And being fap, sir, was, as they say, cashiered; and so conclusions passed the careires. SLENDER Ay, you spake in Latin then too; but 'tis no matter: I'll ne'er be drunk whilst I live again, but in honest, civil, godly company, for this trick: if I be drunk, I'll be drunk with those that have the fear of God, and not with drunken knaves. SIR HUGH EVANS So Got udge me, that is a virtuous mind. FALSTAFF You hear all these matters denied, gentlemen; you hear it. [Enter ANNE PAGE, with wine; MISTRESS FORD and MISTRESS PAGE, following] PAGE Nay, daughter, carry the wine in; we'll drink within. [Exit ANNE PAGE] SLENDER O heaven! this is Mistress Anne Page. PAGE How now, Mistress Ford! FALSTAFF Mistress Ford, by my troth, you are very well met: by your leave, good mistress. [Kisses her] PAGE Wife, bid these gentlemen welcome. Come, we have a hot venison pasty to dinner: come, gentlemen, I hope we shall drink down all unkindness. [Exeunt all except SHALLOW, SLENDER, and SIR HUGH EVANS] SLENDER I had rather than forty shillings I had my Book of Songs and Sonnets here. [Enter SIMPLE] How now, Simple! where have you been? I must wait on myself, must I? You have not the Book of Riddles about you, have you? SIMPLE Book of Riddles! why, did you not lend it to Alice Shortcake upon All-hallowmas last, a fortnight afore Michaelmas? SHALLOW Come, coz; come, coz; we stay for you. A word with you, coz; marry, this, coz: there is, as 'twere, a tender, a kind of tender, made afar off by Sir Hugh here. Do you understand me? SLENDER Ay, sir, you shall find me reasonable; if it be so, I shall do that that is reason. SHALLOW Nay, but understand me. SLENDER So I do, sir. SIR HUGH EVANS Give ear to his motions, Master Slender: I will description the matter to you, if you be capacity of it. SLENDER Nay, I will do as my cousin Shallow says: I pray you, pardon me; he's a justice of peace in his country, simple though I stand here. SIR HUGH EVANS But that is not the question: the question is concerning your marriage. SHALLOW Ay, there's the point, sir. SIR HUGH EVANS Marry, is it; the very point of it; to Mistress Anne Page. SLENDER Why, if it be so, I will marry her upon any reasonable demands. SIR HUGH EVANS But can you affection the 'oman? Let us command to know that of your mouth or of your lips; for divers philosophers hold that the lips is parcel of the mouth. Therefore, precisely, can you carry your good will to the maid? SHALLOW Cousin Abraham Slender, can you love her? SLENDER I hope, sir, I will do as it shall become one that would do reason. SIR HUGH EVANS Nay, Got's lords and his ladies! you must speak possitable, if you can carry her your desires towards her. SHALLOW That you must. Will you, upon good dowry, marry her? SLENDER I will do a greater thing than that, upon your request, cousin, in any reason. SHALLOW Nay, conceive me, conceive me, sweet coz: what I do is to pleasure you, coz. Can you love the maid? SLENDER I will marry her, sir, at your request: but if there be no great love in the beginning, yet heaven may decrease it upon better acquaintance, when we are married and have more occasion to know one another; I hope, upon familiarity will grow more contempt: but if you say, 'Marry her,' I will marry her; that I am freely dissolved, and dissolutely. SIR HUGH EVANS It is a fery discretion answer; save the fall is in the ort 'dissolutely:' the ort is, according to our meaning, 'resolutely:' his meaning is good. SHALLOW Ay, I think my cousin meant well. SLENDER Ay, or else I would I might be hanged, la! SHALLOW Here comes fair Mistress Anne. [Re-enter ANNE PAGE] Would I were young for your sake, Mistress Anne! ANNE PAGE The dinner is on the table; my father desires your worships' company. SHALLOW I will wait on him, fair Mistress Anne. SIR HUGH EVANS Od's plessed will! I will not be absence at the grace. [Exeunt SHALLOW and SIR HUGH EVANS] ANNE PAGE Will't please your worship to come in, sir? SLENDER No, I thank you, forsooth, heartily; I am very well. ANNE PAGE The dinner attends you, sir. SLENDER I am not a-hungry, I thank you, forsooth. Go, sirrah, for all you are my man, go wait upon my cousin Shallow. [Exit SIMPLE] A justice of peace sometimes may be beholding to his friend for a man. I keep but three men and a boy yet, till my mother be dead: but what though? Yet I live like a poor gentleman born. ANNE PAGE I may not go in without your worship: they will not sit till you come. SLENDER I' faith, I'll eat nothing; I thank you as much as though I did. ANNE PAGE I pray you, sir, walk in. SLENDER I had rather walk here, I thank you. I bruised my shin th' other day with playing at sword and dagger with a master of fence; three veneys for a dish of stewed prunes; and, by my troth, I cannot abide the smell of hot meat since. Why do your dogs bark so? be there bears i' the town? ANNE PAGE I think there are, sir; I heard them talked of. SLENDER I love the sport well but I shall as soon quarrel at it as any man in England. You are afraid, if you see the bear loose, are you not? ANNE PAGE Ay, indeed, sir. SLENDER That's meat and drink to me, now. I have seen Sackerson loose twenty times, and have taken him by the chain; but, I warrant you, the women have so cried and shrieked at it, that it passed: but women, indeed, cannot abide 'em; they are very ill-favored rough things. [Re-enter PAGE] PAGE Come, gentle Master Slender, come; we stay for you. SLENDER I'll eat nothing, I thank you, sir. PAGE By cock and pie, you shall not choose, sir! come, come. SLENDER Nay, pray you, lead the way. PAGE Come on, sir. SLENDER Mistress Anne, yourself shall go first. ANNE PAGE Not I, sir; pray you, keep on. SLENDER I'll rather be unmannerly than troublesome. You do yourself wrong, indeed, la! [Exeunt] THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR ACT I SCENE II The same. [Enter SIR HUGH EVANS and SIMPLE] SIR HUGH EVANS Go your ways, and ask of Doctor Caius' house which is the way: and there dwells one Mistress Quickly, which is in the manner of his nurse, or his dry nurse, or his cook, or his laundry, his washer, and his wringer. SIMPLE Well, sir. SIR HUGH EVANS Nay, it is petter yet. Give her this letter; for it is a 'oman that altogether's acquaintance with Mistress Anne Page: and the letter is, to desire and require her to solicit your master's desires to Mistress Anne Page. I pray you, be gone: I will make an end of my dinner; there's pippins and cheese to come. [Exeunt] THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR ACT I SCENE III A room in the Garter Inn. [Enter FALSTAFF, Host, BARDOLPH, NYM, PISTOL, and ROBIN] FALSTAFF Mine host of the Garter! Host What says my bully-rook? speak scholarly and wisely. FALSTAFF Truly, mine host, I must turn away some of my followers. Host Discard, bully Hercules; cashier: let them wag; trot, trot. FALSTAFF I sit at ten pounds a week. Host Thou'rt an emperor, Caesar, Keisar, and Pheezar. I will entertain Bardolph; he shall draw, he shall tap: said I well, bully Hector? FALSTAFF Do so, good mine host. Host I have spoke; let him follow. [To BARDOLPH] Let me see thee froth and lime: I am at a word; follow. [Exit] FALSTAFF Bardolph, follow him. A tapster is a good trade: an old cloak makes a new jerkin; a withered serving-man a fresh tapster. Go; adieu. BARDOLPH It is a life that I have desired: I will thrive. PISTOL O base Hungarian wight! wilt thou the spigot wield? [Exit BARDOLPH] NYM He was gotten in drink: is not the humour conceited? FALSTAFF I am glad I am so acquit of this tinderbox: his thefts were too open; his filching was like an unskilful singer; he kept not time. NYM The good humour is to steal at a minute's rest. PISTOL 'Convey,' the wise it call. 'Steal!' foh! a fico for the phrase! FALSTAFF Well, sirs, I am almost out at heels. PISTOL Why, then, let kibes ensue. FALSTAFF There is no remedy; I must cony-catch; I must shift. PISTOL Young ravens must have food. FALSTAFF Which of you know Ford of this town? PISTOL I ken the wight: he is of substance good. FALSTAFF My honest lads, I will tell you what I am about. PISTOL Two yards, and more. FALSTAFF No quips now, Pistol! Indeed, I am in the waist two yards about; but I am now about no waste; I am about thrift. Briefly, I do mean to make love to Ford's wife: I spy entertainment in her; she discourses, she carves, she gives the leer of invitation: I can construe the action of her familiar style; and the hardest voice of her behavior, to be Englished rightly, is, 'I am Sir John Falstaff's.' PISTOL He hath studied her will, and translated her will, out of honesty into English. NYM The anchor is deep: will that humour pass? FALSTAFF Now, the report goes she has all the rule of her husband's purse: he hath a legion of angels. PISTOL As many devils entertain; and 'To her, boy,' say I. NYM The humour rises; it is good: humour me the angels. FALSTAFF I have writ me here a letter to her: and here another to Page's wife, who even now gave me good eyes too, examined my parts with most judicious oeillades; sometimes the beam of her view gilded my foot, sometimes my portly belly. PISTOL Then did the sun on dunghill shine. NYM I thank thee for that humour. FALSTAFF O, she did so course o'er my exteriors with such a greedy intention, that the appetite of her eye did seem to scorch me up like a burning-glass! Here's another letter to her: she bears the purse too; she is a region in Guiana, all gold and bounty. I will be cheater to them both, and they shall be exchequers to me; they shall be my East and West Indies, and I will trade to them both. Go bear thou this letter to Mistress Page; and thou this to Mistress Ford: we will thrive, lads, we will thrive. PISTOL Shall I Sir Pandarus of Troy become, And by my side wear steel? then, Lucifer take all! NYM I will run no base humour: here, take the humour-letter: I will keep the havior of reputation. FALSTAFF [To ROBIN] Hold, sirrah, bear you these letters tightly; Sail like my pinnace to these golden shores. Rogues, hence, avaunt! vanish like hailstones, go; Trudge, plod away o' the hoof; seek shelter, pack! Falstaff will learn the humour of the age, French thrift, you rogues; myself and skirted page. [Exeunt FALSTAFF and ROBIN] PISTOL Let vultures gripe thy guts! for gourd and fullam holds, And high and low beguiles the rich and poor: Tester I'll have in pouch when thou shalt lack, Base Phrygian Turk! NYM I have operations which be humours of revenge. PISTOL Wilt thou revenge? NYM By welkin and her star! PISTOL With wit or steel? NYM With both the humours, I: I will discuss the humour of this love to Page. PISTOL And I to Ford shall eke unfold How Falstaff, varlet vile, His dove will prove, his gold will hold, And his soft couch defile. NYM My humour shall not cool: I will incense Page to deal with poison; I will possess him with yellowness, for the revolt of mine is dangerous: that is my true humour. PISTOL Thou art the Mars of malecontents: I second thee; troop on. [Exeunt] THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR ACT I SCENE IV A room in DOCTOR CAIUS' house. [Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY, SIMPLE, and RUGBY] MISTRESS QUICKLY What, John Rugby! I pray thee, go to the casement, and see if you can see my master, Master Doctor Caius, coming. If he do, i' faith, and find any body in the house, here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the king's English. RUGBY I'll go watch. MISTRESS QUICKLY Go; and we'll have a posset for't soon at night, in faith, at the latter end of a sea-coal fire. [Exit RUGBY] An honest, willing, kind fellow, as ever servant shall come in house withal, and, I warrant you, no tell-tale nor no breed-bate: his worst fault is, that he is given to prayer; he is something peevish that way: but nobody but has his fault; but let that pass. Peter Simple, you say your name is? SIMPLE Ay, for fault of a better. MISTRESS QUICKLY And Master Slender's your master? SIMPLE Ay, forsooth. MISTRESS QUICKLY Does he not wear a great round beard, like a glover's paring-knife? SIMPLE No, forsooth: he hath but a little wee face, with a little yellow beard, a Cain-coloured beard. MISTRESS QUICKLY A softly-sprighted man, is he not? SIMPLE Ay, forsooth: but he is as tall a man of his hands as any is between this and his head; he hath fought with a warrener. MISTRESS QUICKLY How say you? O, I should remember him: does he not hold up his head, as it were, and strut in his gait? SIMPLE Yes, indeed, does he. MISTRESS QUICKLY Well, heaven send Anne Page no worse fortune! Tell Master Parson Evans I will do what I can for your master: Anne is a good girl, and I wish-- [Re-enter RUGBY] RUGBY Out, alas! here comes my master. MISTRESS QUICKLY We shall all be shent. Run in here, good young man; go into this closet: he will not stay long. [Shuts SIMPLE in the closet] What, John Rugby! John! what, John, I say! Go, John, go inquire for my master; I doubt he be not well, that he comes not home. [Singing] And down, down, adown-a, &c. [Enter DOCTOR CAIUS] DOCTOR CAIUS Vat is you sing? I do not like des toys. Pray you, go and vetch me in my closet un boitier vert, a box, a green-a box: do intend vat I speak? a green-a box. MISTRESS QUICKLY Ay, forsooth; I'll fetch it you. [Aside] I am glad he went not in himself: if he had found the young man, he would have been horn-mad. DOCTOR CAIUS Fe, fe, fe, fe! ma foi, il fait fort chaud. Je m'en vais a la cour--la grande affaire. MISTRESS QUICKLY Is it this, sir? DOCTOR CAIUS Oui; mette le au mon pocket: depeche, quickly. Vere is dat knave Rugby? MISTRESS QUICKLY What, John Rugby! John! RUGBY Here, sir! DOCTOR CAIUS You are John Rugby, and you are Jack Rugby. Come, take-a your rapier, and come after my heel to the court. RUGBY 'Tis ready, sir, here in the porch. DOCTOR CAIUS By my trot, I tarry too long. Od's me! Qu'ai-j'oublie! dere is some simples in my closet, dat I vill not for the varld I shall leave behind. MISTRESS QUICKLY Ay me, he'll find the young man here, and be mad! DOCTOR CAIUS O diable, diable! vat is in my closet? Villain! larron! [Pulling SIMPLE out] Rugby, my rapier! MISTRESS QUICKLY Good master, be content. DOCTOR CAIUS Wherefore shall I be content-a? MISTRESS QUICKLY The young man is an honest man. DOCTOR CAIUS What shall de honest man do in my closet? dere is no honest man dat shall come in my closet. MISTRESS QUICKLY I beseech you, be not so phlegmatic. Hear the truth of it: he came of an errand to me from Parson Hugh. DOCTOR CAIUS Vell. SIMPLE Ay, forsooth; to desire her to-- MISTRESS QUICKLY Peace, I pray you. DOCTOR CAIUS Peace-a your tongue. Speak-a your tale. SIMPLE To desire this honest gentlewoman, your maid, to speak a good word to Mistress Anne Page for my master in the way of marriage. MISTRESS QUICKLY This is all, indeed, la! but I'll ne'er put my finger in the fire, and need not. DOCTOR CAIUS Sir Hugh send-a you? Rugby, baille me some paper. Tarry you a little-a while. [Writes] MISTRESS QUICKLY [Aside to SIMPLE] I am glad he is so quiet: if he had been thoroughly moved, you should have heard him so loud and so melancholy. But notwithstanding, man, I'll do you your master what good I can: and the very yea and the no is, the French doctor, my master,--I may call him my master, look you, for I keep his house; and I wash, wring, brew, bake, scour, dress meat and drink, make the beds and do all myself,-- SIMPLE [Aside to MISTRESS QUICKLY] 'Tis a great charge to come under one body's hand. MISTRESS QUICKLY [Aside to SIMPLE] Are you avised o' that? you shall find it a great charge: and to be up early and down late; but notwithstanding,--to tell you in your ear; I would have no words of it,--my master himself is in love with Mistress Anne Page: but notwithstanding that, I know Anne's mind,--that's neither here nor there. DOCTOR CAIUS You jack'nape, give-a this letter to Sir Hugh; by gar, it is a shallenge: I will cut his troat in dee park; and I will teach a scurvy jack-a-nape priest to meddle or make. You may be gone; it is not good you tarry here. By gar, I will cut all his two stones; by gar, he shall not have a stone to throw at his dog: [Exit SIMPLE] MISTRESS QUICKLY Alas, he speaks but for his friend. DOCTOR CAIUS It is no matter-a ver dat: do not you tell-a me dat I shall have Anne Page for myself? By gar, I vill kill de Jack priest; and I have appointed mine host of de Jarteer to measure our weapon. By gar, I will myself have Anne Page. MISTRESS QUICKLY Sir, the maid loves you, and all shall be well. We must give folks leave to prate: what, the good-jer! DOCTOR CAIUS Rugby, come to the court with me. By gar, if I have not Anne Page, I shall turn your head out of my door. Follow my heels, Rugby. [Exeunt DOCTOR CAIUS and RUGBY] MISTRESS QUICKLY You shall have An fool's-head of your own. No, I know Anne's mind for that: never a woman in Windsor knows more of Anne's mind than I do; nor can do more than I do with her, I thank heaven. FENTON [Within] Who's within there? ho! MISTRESS QUICKLY Who's there, I trow! Come near the house, I pray you. [Enter FENTON] FENTON How now, good woman? how dost thou? MISTRESS QUICKLY The better that it pleases your good worship to ask. FENTON What news? how does pretty Mistress Anne? MISTRESS QUICKLY In truth, sir, and she is pretty, and honest, and gentle; and one that is your friend, I can tell you that by the way; I praise heaven for it. FENTON Shall I do any good, thinkest thou? shall I not lose my suit? MISTRESS QUICKLY Troth, sir, all is in his hands above: but notwithstanding, Master Fenton, I'll be sworn on a book, she loves you. Have not your worship a wart above your eye? FENTON Yes, marry, have I; what of that? MISTRESS QUICKLY Well, thereby hangs a tale: good faith, it is such another Nan; but, I detest, an honest maid as ever broke bread: we had an hour's talk of that wart. I shall never laugh but in that maid's company! But indeed she is given too much to allicholy and musing: but for you--well, go to. FENTON Well, I shall see her to-day. Hold, there's money for thee; let me have thy voice in my behalf: if thou seest her before me, commend me. MISTRESS QUICKLY Will I? i'faith, that we will; and I will tell your worship more of the wart the next time we have confidence; and of other wooers. FENTON Well, farewell; I am in great haste now. MISTRESS QUICKLY Farewell to your worship. [Exit FENTON] Truly, an honest gentleman: but Anne loves him not; for I know Anne's mind as well as another does. Out upon't! what have I forgot? [Exit] THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR ACT II SCENE I Before PAGE'S house. [Enter MISTRESS PAGE, with a letter] MISTRESS PAGE What, have I scaped love-letters in the holiday- time of my beauty, and am I now a subject for them? Let me see. [Reads] 'Ask me no reason why I love you; for though Love use Reason for his physician, he admits him not for his counsellor. You are not young, no more am I; go to then, there's sympathy: you are merry, so am I; ha, ha! then there's more sympathy: you love sack, and so do I; would you desire better sympathy? Let it suffice thee, Mistress Page,--at the least, if the love of soldier can suffice,-- that I love thee. I will not say, pity me; 'tis not a soldier-like phrase: but I say, love me. By me, Thine own true knight, By day or night, Or any kind of light, With all his might For thee to fight, JOHN FALSTAFF' What a Herod of Jewry is this! O wicked world! One that is well-nigh worn to pieces with age to show himself a young gallant! What an unweighed behavior hath this Flemish drunkard picked--with the devil's name!--out of my conversation, that he dares in this manner assay me? Why, he hath not been thrice in my company! What should I say to him? I was then frugal of my mirth: Heaven forgive me! Why, I'll exhibit a bill in the parliament for the putting down of men. How shall I be revenged on him? for revenged I will be, as sure as his guts are made of puddings. [Enter MISTRESS FORD] MISTRESS FORD Mistress Page! trust me, I was going to your house. MISTRESS PAGE And, trust me, I was coming to you. You look very ill. MISTRESS FORD Nay, I'll ne'er believe that; I have to show to the contrary. MISTRESS PAGE Faith, but you do, in my mind. MISTRESS FORD Well, I do then; yet I say I could show you to the contrary. O Mistress Page, give me some counsel! MISTRESS PAGE What's the matter, woman? MISTRESS FORD O woman, if it were not for one trifling respect, I could come to such honour! MISTRESS PAGE Hang the trifle, woman! take the honour. What is it? dispense with trifles; what is it? MISTRESS FORD If I would but go to hell for an eternal moment or so, I could be knighted. MISTRESS PAGE What? thou liest! Sir Alice Ford! These knights will hack; and so thou shouldst not alter the article of thy gentry. MISTRESS FORD We burn daylight: here, read, read; perceive how I might be knighted. I shall think the worse of fat men, as long as I have an eye to make difference of men's liking: and yet he would not swear; praised women's modesty; and gave such orderly and well-behaved reproof to all uncomeliness, that I would have sworn his disposition would have gone to the truth of his words; but they do no more adhere and keep place together than the Hundredth Psalm to the tune of 'Green Sleeves.' What tempest, I trow, threw this whale, with so many tuns of oil in his belly, ashore at Windsor? How shall I be revenged on him? I think the best way were to entertain him with hope, till the wicked fire of lust have melted him in his own grease. Did you ever hear the like? MISTRESS PAGE Letter for letter, but that the name of Page and Ford differs! To thy great comfort in this mystery of ill opinions, here's the twin-brother of thy letter: but let thine inherit first; for, I protest, mine never shall. I warrant he hath a thousand of these letters, writ with blank space for different names--sure, more,--and these are of the second edition: he will print them, out of doubt; for he cares not what he puts into the press, when he would put us two. I had rather be a giantess, and lie under Mount Pelion. Well, I will find you twenty lascivious turtles ere one chaste man. MISTRESS FORD Why, this is the very same; the very hand, the very words. What doth he think of us? MISTRESS PAGE Nay, I know not: it makes me almost ready to wrangle with mine own honesty. I'll entertain myself like one that I am not acquainted withal; for, sure, unless he know some strain in me, that I know not myself, he would never have boarded me in this fury. MISTRESS FORD 'Boarding,' call you it? I'll be sure to keep him above deck. MISTRESS PAGE So will I if he come under my hatches, I'll never to sea again. Let's be revenged on him: let's appoint him a meeting; give him a show of comfort in his suit and lead him on with a fine-baited delay, till he hath pawned his horses to mine host of the Garter. MISTRESS FORD Nay, I will consent to act any villany against him, that may not sully the chariness of our honesty. O, that my husband saw this letter! it would give eternal food to his jealousy. MISTRESS PAGE Why, look where he comes; and my good man too: he's as far from jealousy as I am from giving him cause; and that I hope is an unmeasurable distance. MISTRESS FORD You are the happier woman. MISTRESS PAGE Let's consult together against this greasy knight. Come hither. [They retire] [Enter FORD with PISTOL, and PAGE with NYM] FORD Well, I hope it be not so. PISTOL Hope is a curtal dog in some affairs: Sir John affects thy wife. FORD Why, sir, my wife is not young. PISTOL He wooes both high and low, both rich and poor, Both young and old, one with another, Ford; He loves the gallimaufry: Ford, perpend. FORD Love my wife! PISTOL With liver burning hot. Prevent, or go thou, Like Sir Actaeon he, with Ringwood at thy heels: O, odious is the name! FORD What name, sir? PISTOL The horn, I say. Farewell. Take heed, have open eye, for thieves do foot by night: Take heed, ere summer comes or cuckoo-birds do sing. Away, Sir Corporal Nym! Believe it, Page; he speaks sense. [Exit] FORD [Aside] I will be patient; I will find out this. NYM [To PAGE] And this is true; I like not the humour of lying. He hath wronged me in some humours: I should have borne the humoured letter to her; but I have a sword and it shall bite upon my necessity. He loves your wife; there's the short and the long. My name is Corporal Nym; I speak and I avouch; 'tis true: my name is Nym and Falstaff loves your wife. Adieu. I love not the humour of bread and cheese, and there's the humour of it. Adieu. [Exit] PAGE 'The humour of it,' quoth a'! here's a fellow frights English out of his wits. FORD I will seek out Falstaff. PAGE I never heard such a drawling, affecting rogue. FORD If I do find it: well. PAGE I will not believe such a Cataian, though the priest o' the town commended him for a true man. FORD 'Twas a good sensible fellow: well. PAGE How now, Meg! [MISTRESS PAGE and MISTRESS FORD come forward] MISTRESS PAGE Whither go you, George? Hark you. MISTRESS FORD How now, sweet Frank! why art thou melancholy? FORD I melancholy! I am not melancholy. Get you home, go. MISTRESS FORD Faith, thou hast some crotchets in thy head. Now, will you go, Mistress Page? MISTRESS PAGE Have with you. You'll come to dinner, George. [Aside to MISTRESS FORD] Look who comes yonder: she shall be our messenger to this paltry knight. MISTRESS FORD [Aside to MISTRESS PAGE] Trust me, I thought on her: she'll fit it. [Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY] MISTRESS PAGE You are come to see my daughter Anne? MISTRESS QUICKLY Ay, forsooth; and, I pray, how does good Mistress Anne? MISTRESS PAGE Go in with us and see: we have an hour's talk with you. [Exeunt MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD, and MISTRESS QUICKLY] PAGE How now, Master Ford! FORD You heard what this knave told me, did you not? PAGE Yes: and you heard what the other told me? FORD Do you think there is truth in them? PAGE Hang 'em, slaves! I do not think the knight would offer it: but these that accuse him in his intent towards our wives are a yoke of his discarded men; very rogues, now they be out of service. FORD Were they his men? PAGE Marry, were they. FORD I like it never the better for that. Does he lie at the Garter? PAGE Ay, marry, does he. If he should intend this voyage towards my wife, I would turn her loose to him; and what he gets more of her than sharp words, let it lie on my head. FORD I do not misdoubt my wife; but I would be loath to turn them together. A man may be too confident: I would have nothing lie on my head: I cannot be thus satisfied. PAGE Look where my ranting host of the Garter comes: there is either liquor in his pate or money in his purse when he looks so merrily. [Enter Host] How now, mine host! Host How now, bully-rook! thou'rt a gentleman. Cavaleiro-justice, I say! [Enter SHALLOW] SHALLOW I follow, mine host, I follow. Good even and twenty, good Master Page! Master Page, will you go with us? we have sport in hand. Host Tell him, cavaleiro-justice; tell him, bully-rook. SHALLOW Sir, there is a fray to be fought between Sir Hugh the Welsh priest and Caius the French doctor. FORD Good mine host o' the Garter, a word with you. [Drawing him aside] Host What sayest thou, my bully-rook? SHALLOW [To PAGE] Will you go with us to behold it? My merry host hath had the measuring of their weapons; and, I think, hath appointed them contrary places; for, believe me, I hear the parson is no jester. Hark, I will tell you what our sport shall be. [They converse apart] Host Hast thou no suit against my knight, my guest-cavaleire? FORD None, I protest: but I'll give you a pottle of burnt sack to give me recourse to him and tell him my name is Brook; only for a jest. Host My hand, bully; thou shalt have egress and regress; --said I well?--and thy name shall be Brook. It is a merry knight. Will you go, An-heires? SHALLOW Have with you, mine host. PAGE I have heard the Frenchman hath good skill in his rapier. SHALLOW Tut, sir, I could have told you more. In these times you stand on distance, your passes, stoccadoes, and I know not what: 'tis the heart, Master Page; 'tis here, 'tis here. I have seen the time, with my long sword I would have made you four tall fellows skip like rats. Host Here, boys, here, here! shall we wag? PAGE Have with you. I would rather hear them scold than fight. [Exeunt Host, SHALLOW, and PAGE] FORD Though Page be a secure fool, an stands so firmly on his wife's frailty, yet I cannot put off my opinion so easily: she was in his company at Page's house; and what they made there, I know not. Well, I will look further into't: and I have a disguise to sound Falstaff. If I find her honest, I lose not my labour; if she be otherwise, 'tis labour well bestowed. [Exit] THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR ACT II SCENE II A room in the Garter Inn. [Enter FALSTAFF and PISTOL] FALSTAFF I will not lend thee a penny. PISTOL Why, then the world's mine oyster. Which I with sword will open. FALSTAFF Not a penny. I have been content, sir, you should lay my countenance to pawn; I have grated upon my good friends for three reprieves for you and your coach-fellow Nym; or else you had looked through the grate, like a geminy of baboons. I am damned in hell for swearing to gentlemen my friends, you were good soldiers and tall fellows; and when Mistress Bridget lost the handle of her fan, I took't upon mine honour thou hadst it not. PISTOL Didst not thou share? hadst thou not fifteen pence? FALSTAFF Reason, you rogue, reason: thinkest thou I'll endanger my soul gratis? At a word, hang no more about me, I am no gibbet for you. Go. A short knife and a throng! To your manor of Pickt-hatch! Go. You'll not bear a letter for me, you rogue! you stand upon your honour! Why, thou unconfinable baseness, it is as much as I can do to keep the terms of my honour precise: I, I, I myself sometimes, leaving the fear of God on the left hand and hiding mine honour in my necessity, am fain to shuffle, to hedge and to lurch; and yet you, rogue, will ensconce your rags, your cat-a-mountain looks, your red-lattice phrases, and your bold-beating oaths, under the shelter of your honour! You will not do it, you! PISTOL I do relent: what would thou more of man? [Enter ROBIN] ROBIN Sir, here's a woman would speak with you. FALSTAFF Let her approach. [Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY] MISTRESS QUICKLY Give your worship good morrow. FALSTAFF Good morrow, good wife. MISTRESS QUICKLY Not so, an't please your worship. FALSTAFF Good maid, then. MISTRESS QUICKLY I'll be sworn, As my mother was, the first hour I was born. FALSTAFF I do believe the swearer. What with me? MISTRESS QUICKLY Shall I vouchsafe your worship a word or two? FALSTAFF Two thousand, fair woman: and I'll vouchsafe thee the hearing. MISTRESS QUICKLY There is one Mistress Ford, sir:--I pray, come a little nearer this ways:--I myself dwell with master Doctor Caius,-- FALSTAFF Well, on: Mistress Ford, you say,-- MISTRESS QUICKLY Your worship says very true: I pray your worship, come a little nearer this ways. FALSTAFF I warrant thee, nobody hears; mine own people, mine own people. MISTRESS QUICKLY Are they so? God bless them and make them his servants! FALSTAFF Well, Mistress Ford; what of her? MISTRESS QUICKLY Why, sir, she's a good creature. Lord Lord! your worship's a wanton! Well, heaven forgive you and all of us, I pray! FALSTAFF Mistress Ford; come, Mistress Ford,-- MISTRESS QUICKLY Marry, this is the short and the long of it; you have brought her into such a canaries as 'tis wonderful. The best courtier of them all, when the court lay at Windsor, could never have brought her to such a canary. Yet there has been knights, and lords, and gentlemen, with their coaches, I warrant you, coach after coach, letter after letter, gift after gift; smelling so sweetly, all musk, and so rushling, I warrant you, in silk and gold; and in such alligant terms; and in such wine and sugar of the best and the fairest, that would have won any woman's heart; and, I warrant you, they could never get an eye-wink of her: I had myself twenty angels given me this morning; but I defy all angels, in any such sort, as they say, but in the way of honesty: and, I warrant you, they could never get her so much as sip on a cup with the proudest of them all: and yet there has been earls, nay, which is more, pensioners; but, I warrant you, all is one with her. FALSTAFF But what says she to me? be brief, my good she-Mercury. MISTRESS QUICKLY Marry, she hath received your letter, for the which she thanks you a thousand times; and she gives you to notify that her husband will be absence from his house between ten and eleven. FALSTAFF Ten and eleven? MISTRESS QUICKLY Ay, forsooth; and then you may come and see the picture, she says, that you wot of: Master Ford, her husband, will be from home. Alas! the sweet woman leads an ill life with him: he's a very jealousy man: she leads a very frampold life with him, good heart. FALSTAFF Ten and eleven. Woman, commend me to her; I will not fail her. MISTRESS QUICKLY Why, you say well. But I have another messenger to your worship. Mistress Page hath her hearty commendations to you too: and let me tell you in your ear, she's as fartuous a civil modest wife, and one, I tell you, that will not miss you morning nor evening prayer, as any is in Windsor, whoe'er be the other: and she bade me tell your worship that her husband is seldom from home; but she hopes there will come a time. I never knew a woman so dote upon a man: surely I think you have charms, la; yes, in truth. FALSTAFF Not I, I assure thee: setting the attractions of my good parts aside I have no other charms. MISTRESS QUICKLY Blessing on your heart for't! FALSTAFF But, I pray thee, tell me this: has Ford's wife and Page's wife acquainted each other how they love me? MISTRESS QUICKLY That were a jest indeed! they have not so little grace, I hope: that were a trick indeed! but Mistress Page would desire you to send her your little page, of all loves: her husband has a marvellous infection to the little page; and truly Master Page is an honest man. Never a wife in Windsor leads a better life than she does: do what she will, say what she will, take all, pay all, go to bed when she list, rise when she list, all is as she will: and truly she deserves it; for if there be a kind woman in Windsor, she is one. You must send her your page; no remedy. FALSTAFF Why, I will. MISTRESS QUICKLY Nay, but do so, then: and, look you, he may come and go between you both; and in any case have a nay-word, that you may know one another's mind, and the boy never need to understand any thing; for 'tis not good that children should know any wickedness: old folks, you know, have discretion, as they say, and know the world. FALSTAFF Fare thee well: commend me to them both: there's my purse; I am yet thy debtor. Boy, go along with this woman. [Exeunt MISTRESS QUICKLY and ROBIN] This news distracts me! PISTOL This punk is one of Cupid's carriers: Clap on more sails; pursue; up with your fights: Give fire: she is my prize, or ocean whelm them all! [Exit] FALSTAFF Sayest thou so, old Jack? go thy ways; I'll make more of thy old body than I have done. Will they yet look after thee? Wilt thou, after the expense of so much money, be now a gainer? Good body, I thank thee. Let them say 'tis grossly done; so it be fairly done, no matter. [Enter BARDOLPH] BARDOLPH Sir John, there's one Master Brook below would fain speak with you, and be acquainted with you; and hath sent your worship a morning's draught of sack. FALSTAFF Brook is his name? BARDOLPH Ay, sir. FALSTAFF Call him in. [Exit BARDOLPH] Such Brooks are welcome to me, that o'erflow such liquor. Ah, ha! Mistress Ford and Mistress Page have I encompassed you? go to; via! [Re-enter BARDOLPH, with FORD disguised] FORD Bless you, sir! FALSTAFF And you, sir! Would you speak with me? FORD I make bold to press with so little preparation upon you. FALSTAFF You're welcome. What's your will? Give us leave, drawer. [Exit BARDOLPH] FORD Sir, I am a gentleman that have spent much; my name is Brook. FALSTAFF Good Master Brook, I desire more acquaintance of you. FORD Good Sir John, I sue for yours: not to charge you; for I must let you understand I think myself in better plight for a lender than you are: the which hath something embolden'd me to this unseasoned intrusion; for they say, if money go before, all ways do lie open. FALSTAFF Money is a good soldier, sir, and will on. FORD Troth, and I have a bag of money here troubles me: if you will help to bear it, Sir John, take all, or half, for easing me of the carriage. FALSTAFF Sir, I know not how I may deserve to be your porter. FORD I will tell you, sir, if you will give me the hearing. FALSTAFF Speak, good Master Brook: I shall be glad to be your servant. FORD Sir, I hear you are a scholar,--I will be brief with you,--and you have been a man long known to me, though I had never so good means, as desire, to make myself acquainted with you. I shall discover a thing to you, wherein I must very much lay open mine own imperfection: but, good Sir John, as you have one eye upon my follies, as you hear them unfolded, turn another into the register of your own; that I may pass with a reproof the easier, sith you yourself know how easy it is to be such an offender. FALSTAFF Very well, sir; proceed. FORD There is a gentlewoman in this town; her husband's name is Ford. FALSTAFF Well, sir. FORD I have long loved her, and, I protest to you, bestowed much on her; followed her with a doting observance; engrossed opportunities to meet her; fee'd every slight occasion that could but niggardly give me sight of her; not only bought many presents to give her, but have given largely to many to know what she would have given; briefly, I have pursued her as love hath pursued me; which hath been on the wing of all occasions. But whatsoever I have merited, either in my mind or, in my means, meed, I am sure, I have received none; unless experience be a jewel that I have purchased at an infinite rate, and that hath taught me to say this: 'Love like a shadow flies when substance love pursues; Pursuing that that flies, and flying what pursues.' FALSTAFF Have you received no promise of satisfaction at her hands? FORD Never. FALSTAFF Have you importuned her to such a purpose? FORD Never. FALSTAFF Of what quality was your love, then? FORD Like a fair house built on another man's ground; so that I have lost my edifice by mistaking the place where I erected it. FALSTAFF To what purpose have you unfolded this to me? FORD When I have told you that, I have told you all. Some say, that though she appear honest to me, yet in other places she enlargeth her mirth so far that there is shrewd construction made of her. Now, Sir John, here is the heart of my purpose: you are a gentleman of excellent breeding, admirable discourse, of great admittance, authentic in your place and person, generally allowed for your many war-like, court-like, and learned preparations. FALSTAFF O, sir! FORD Believe it, for you know it. There is money; spend it, spend it; spend more; spend all I have; only give me so much of your time in exchange of it, as to lay an amiable siege to the honesty of this Ford's wife: use your art of wooing; win her to consent to you: if any man may, you may as soon as any. FALSTAFF Would it apply well to the vehemency of your affection, that I should win what you would enjoy? Methinks you prescribe to yourself very preposterously. FORD O, understand my drift. She dwells so securely on the excellency of her honour, that the folly of my soul dares not present itself: she is too bright to be looked against. Now, could I could come to her with any detection in my hand, my desires had instance and argument to commend themselves: I could drive her then from the ward of her purity, her reputation, her marriage-vow, and a thousand other her defences, which now are too too strongly embattled against me. What say you to't, Sir John? FALSTAFF Master Brook, I will first make bold with your money; next, give me your hand; and last, as I am a gentleman, you shall, if you will, enjoy Ford's wife. FORD O good sir! FALSTAFF I say you shall. FORD Want no money, Sir John; you shall want none. FALSTAFF Want no Mistress Ford, Master Brook; you shall want none. I shall be with her, I may tell you, by her own appointment; even as you came in to me, her assistant or go-between parted from me: I say I shall be with her between ten and eleven; for at that time the jealous rascally knave her husband will be forth. Come you to me at night; you shall know how I speed. FORD I am blest in your acquaintance. Do you know Ford, sir? FALSTAFF Hang him, poor cuckoldly knave! I know him not: yet I wrong him to call him poor; they say the jealous wittolly knave hath masses of money; for the which his wife seems to me well-favored. I will use her as the key of the cuckoldly rogue's coffer; and there's my harvest-home. FORD I would you knew Ford, sir, that you might avoid him if you saw him. FALSTAFF Hang him, mechanical salt-butter rogue! I will stare him out of his wits; I will awe him with my cudgel: it shall hang like a meteor o'er the cuckold's horns. Master Brook, thou shalt know I will predominate over the peasant, and thou shalt lie with his wife. Come to me soon at night. Ford's a knave, and I will aggravate his style; thou, Master Brook, shalt know him for knave and cuckold. Come to me soon at night. [Exit] FORD What a damned Epicurean rascal is this! My heart is ready to crack with impatience. Who says this is improvident jealousy? my wife hath sent to him; the hour is fixed; the match is made. Would any man have thought this? See the hell of having a false woman! My bed shall be abused, my coffers ransacked, my reputation gnawn at; and I shall not only receive this villanous wrong, but stand under the adoption of abominable terms, and by him that does me this wrong. Terms! names! Amaimon sounds well; Lucifer, well; Barbason, well; yet they are devils' additions, the names of fiends: but Cuckold! Wittol!--Cuckold! the devil himself hath not such a name. Page is an ass, a secure ass: he will trust his wife; he will not be jealous. I will rather trust a Fleming with my butter, Parson Hugh the Welshman with my cheese, an Irishman with my aqua-vitae bottle, or a thief to walk my ambling gelding, than my wife with herself; then she plots, then she ruminates, then she devises; and what they think in their hearts they may effect, they will break their hearts but they will effect. God be praised for my jealousy! Eleven o'clock the hour. I will prevent this, detect my wife, be revenged on Falstaff, and laugh at Page. I will about it; better three hours too soon than a minute too late. Fie, fie, fie! cuckold! cuckold! cuckold! [Exit] THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR ACT II SCENE III A field near Windsor. [Enter DOCTOR CAIUS and RUGBY] DOCTOR CAIUS Jack Rugby! RUGBY Sir? DOCTOR CAIUS Vat is de clock, Jack? RUGBY 'Tis past the hour, sir, that Sir Hugh promised to meet. DOCTOR CAIUS By gar, he has save his soul, dat he is no come; he has pray his Pible well, dat he is no come: by gar, Jack Rugby, he is dead already, if he be come. RUGBY He is wise, sir; he knew your worship would kill him, if he came. DOCTOR CAIUS By gar, de herring is no dead so as I vill kill him. Take your rapier, Jack; I vill tell you how I vill kill him. RUGBY Alas, sir, I cannot fence. DOCTOR CAIUS Villany, take your rapier. RUGBY Forbear; here's company. [Enter Host, SHALLOW, SLENDER, and PAGE] Host Bless thee, bully doctor! SHALLOW Save you, Master Doctor Caius! PAGE Now, good master doctor! SLENDER Give you good morrow, sir. DOCTOR CAIUS Vat be all you, one, two, tree, four, come for? Host To see thee fight, to see thee foin, to see thee traverse; to see thee here, to see thee there; to see thee pass thy punto, thy stock, thy reverse, thy distance, thy montant. Is he dead, my Ethiopian? is he dead, my Francisco? ha, bully! What says my AEsculapius? my Galen? my heart of elder? ha! is he dead, bully stale? is he dead? DOCTOR CAIUS By gar, he is de coward Jack priest of de vorld; he is not show his face. Host Thou art a Castalion-King-Urinal. Hector of Greece, my boy! DOCTOR CAIUS I pray you, bear vitness that me have stay six or seven, two, tree hours for him, and he is no come. SHALLOW He is the wiser man, master doctor: he is a curer of souls, and you a curer of bodies; if you should fight, you go against the hair of your professions. Is it not true, Master Page? PAGE Master Shallow, you have yourself been a great fighter, though now a man of peace. SHALLOW Bodykins, Master Page, though I now be old and of the peace, if I see a sword out, my finger itches to make one. Though we are justices and doctors and churchmen, Master Page, we have some salt of our youth in us; we are the sons of women, Master Page. PAGE 'Tis true, Master Shallow. SHALLOW It will be found so, Master Page. Master Doctor Caius, I am come to fetch you home. I am sworn of the peace: you have showed yourself a wise physician, and Sir Hugh hath shown himself a wise and patient churchman. You must go with me, master doctor. Host Pardon, guest-justice. A word, Mounseur Mockwater. DOCTOR CAIUS Mock-vater! vat is dat? Host Mock-water, in our English tongue, is valour, bully. DOCTOR CAIUS By gar, den, I have as mush mock-vater as de Englishman. Scurvy jack-dog priest! by gar, me vill cut his ears. Host He will clapper-claw thee tightly, bully. DOCTOR CAIUS Clapper-de-claw! vat is dat? Host That is, he will make thee amends. DOCTOR CAIUS By gar, me do look he shall clapper-de-claw me; for, by gar, me vill have it. Host And I will provoke him to't, or let him wag. DOCTOR CAIUS Me tank you for dat. Host And, moreover, bully,--but first, master guest, and Master Page, and eke Cavaleiro Slender, go you through the town to Frogmore. [Aside to them] PAGE Sir Hugh is there, is he? Host He is there: see what humour he is in; and I will bring the doctor about by the fields. Will it do well? SHALLOW We will do it. PAGE | | SHALLOW | Adieu, good master doctor. | SLENDER | [Exeunt PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER] DOCTOR CAIUS By gar, me vill kill de priest; for he speak for a jack-an-ape to Anne Page. Host Let him die: sheathe thy impatience, throw cold water on thy choler: go about the fields with me through Frogmore: I will bring thee where Mistress Anne Page is, at a farm-house a-feasting; and thou shalt woo her. Cried I aim? said I well? DOCTOR CAIUS By gar, me dank you for dat: by gar, I love you; and I shall procure-a you de good guest, de earl, de knight, de lords, de gentlemen, my patients. Host For the which I will be thy adversary toward Anne Page. Said I well? DOCTOR CAIUS By gar, 'tis good; vell said. Host Let us wag, then. DOCTOR CAIUS Come at my heels, Jack Rugby. [Exeunt] THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR ACT III SCENE I A field near Frogmore. [Enter SIR HUGH EVANS and SIMPLE] SIR HUGH EVANS I pray you now, good master Slender's serving-man, and friend Simple by your name, which way have you looked for Master Caius, that calls himself doctor of physic? SIMPLE Marry, sir, the pittie-ward, the park-ward, every way; old Windsor way, and every way but the town way. SIR HUGH EVANS I most fehemently desire you you will also look that way. SIMPLE I will, sir. [Exit] SIR HUGH EVANS 'Pless my soul, how full of chollors I am, and trempling of mind! I shall be glad if he have deceived me. How melancholies I am! I will knog his urinals about his knave's costard when I have good opportunities for the ork. 'Pless my soul! [Sings] To shallow rivers, to whose falls Melodious birds sings madrigals; There will we make our peds of roses, And a thousand fragrant posies. To shallow-- Mercy on me! I have a great dispositions to cry. [Sings] Melodious birds sing madrigals-- When as I sat in Pabylon-- And a thousand vagram posies. To shallow &c. [Re-enter SIMPLE] SIMPLE Yonder he is coming, this way, Sir Hugh. SIR HUGH EVANS He's welcome. [Sings] To shallow rivers, to whose falls- Heaven prosper the right! What weapons is he? SIMPLE No weapons, sir. There comes my master, Master Shallow, and another gentleman, from Frogmore, over the stile, this way. SIR HUGH EVANS Pray you, give me my gown; or else keep it in your arms. [Enter PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER] SHALLOW How now, master Parson! Good morrow, good Sir Hugh. Keep a gamester from the dice, and a good student from his book, and it is wonderful. SLENDER [Aside] Ah, sweet Anne Page! PAGE 'Save you, good Sir Hugh! SIR HUGH EVANS 'Pless you from his mercy sake, all of you! SHALLOW What, the sword and the word! do you study them both, master parson? PAGE And youthful still! in your doublet and hose this raw rheumatic day! SIR HUGH EVANS There is reasons and causes for it. PAGE We are come to you to do a good office, master parson. SIR HUGH EVANS Fery well: what is it? PAGE Yonder is a most reverend gentleman, who, belike having received wrong by some person, is at most odds with his own gravity and patience that ever you saw. SHALLOW I have lived fourscore years and upward; I never heard a man of his place, gravity and learning, so wide of his own respect. SIR HUGH EVANS What is he? PAGE I think you know him; Master Doctor Caius, the renowned French physician. SIR HUGH EVANS Got's will, and his passion of my heart! I had as lief you would tell me of a mess of porridge. PAGE Why? SIR HUGH EVANS He has no more knowledge in Hibocrates and Galen, --and he is a knave besides; a cowardly knave as you would desires to be acquainted withal. PAGE I warrant you, he's the man should fight with him. SHALLOW [Aside] O sweet Anne Page! SHALLOW It appears so by his weapons. Keep them asunder: here comes Doctor Caius. [Enter Host, DOCTOR CAIUS, and RUGBY] PAGE Nay, good master parson, keep in your weapon. SHALLOW So do you, good master doctor. Host Disarm them, and let them question: let them keep their limbs whole and hack our English. DOCTOR CAIUS I pray you, let-a me speak a word with your ear. Vherefore vill you not meet-a me? SIR HUGH EVANS [Aside to DOCTOR CAIUS] Pray you, use your patience: in good time. DOCTOR CAIUS By gar, you are de coward, de Jack dog, John ape. SIR HUGH EVANS [Aside to DOCTOR CAIUS] Pray you let us not be laughing-stocks to other men's humours; I desire you in friendship, and I will one way or other make you amends. [Aloud] I will knog your urinals about your knave's cockscomb for missing your meetings and appointments. DOCTOR CAIUS Diable! Jack Rugby,--mine host de Jarteer,--have I not stay for him to kill him? have I not, at de place I did appoint? SIR HUGH EVANS As I am a Christians soul now, look you, this is the place appointed: I'll be judgement by mine host of the Garter. Host Peace, I say, Gallia and Gaul, French and Welsh, soul-curer and body-curer! DOCTOR CAIUS Ay, dat is very good; excellent. Host Peace, I say! hear mine host of the Garter. Am I politic? am I subtle? am I a Machiavel? Shall I lose my doctor? no; he gives me the potions and the motions. Shall I lose my parson, my priest, my Sir Hugh? no; he gives me the proverbs and the no-verbs. Give me thy hand, terrestrial; so. Give me thy hand, celestial; so. Boys of art, I have deceived you both; I have directed you to wrong places: your hearts are mighty, your skins are whole, and let burnt sack be the issue. Come, lay their swords to pawn. Follow me, lads of peace; follow, follow, follow. SHALLOW Trust me, a mad host. Follow, gentlemen, follow. SLENDER [Aside] O sweet Anne Page! [Exeunt SHALLOW, SLENDER, PAGE, and Host] DOCTOR CAIUS Ha, do I perceive dat? have you make-a de sot of us, ha, ha? SIR HUGH EVANS This is well; he has made us his vlouting-stog. I desire you that we may be friends; and let us knog our prains together to be revenge on this same scall, scurvy cogging companion, the host of the Garter. DOCTOR CAIUS By gar, with all my heart. He promise to bring me where is Anne Page; by gar, he deceive me too. SIR HUGH EVANS Well, I will smite his noddles. Pray you, follow. [Exeunt] THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR ACT III SCENE II A street. [Enter MISTRESS PAGE and ROBIN] MISTRESS PAGE Nay, keep your way, little gallant; you were wont to be a follower, but now you are a leader. Whether had you rather lead mine eyes, or eye your master's heels? ROBIN I had rather, forsooth, go before you like a man than follow him like a dwarf. MISTRESS PAGE O, you are a flattering boy: now I see you'll be a courtier. [Enter FORD] FORD Well met, Mistress Page. Whither go you? MISTRESS PAGE Truly, sir, to see your wife. Is she at home? FORD Ay; and as idle as she may hang together, for want of company. I think, if your husbands were dead, you two would marry. MISTRESS PAGE Be sure of that,--two other husbands. FORD Where had you this pretty weather-cock? MISTRESS PAGE I cannot tell what the dickens his name is my husband had him of. What do you call your knight's name, sirrah? ROBIN Sir John Falstaff. FORD Sir John Falstaff! MISTRESS PAGE He, he; I can never hit on's name. There is such a league between my good man and he! Is your wife at home indeed? FORD Indeed she is. MISTRESS PAGE By your leave, sir: I am sick till I see her. [Exeunt MISTRESS PAGE and ROBIN] FORD Has Page any brains? hath he any eyes? hath he any thinking? Sure, they sleep; he hath no use of them. Why, this boy will carry a letter twenty mile, as easy as a cannon will shoot point-blank twelve score. He pieces out his wife's inclination; he gives her folly motion and advantage: and now she's going to my wife, and Falstaff's boy with her. A man may hear this shower sing in the wind. And Falstaff's boy with her! Good plots, they are laid; and our revolted wives share damnation together. Well; I will take him, then torture my wife, pluck the borrowed veil of modesty from the so seeming Mistress Page, divulge Page himself for a secure and wilful Actaeon; and to these violent proceedings all my neighbours shall cry aim. [Clock heard] The clock gives me my cue, and my assurance bids me search: there I shall find Falstaff: I shall be rather praised for this than mocked; for it is as positive as the earth is firm that Falstaff is there: I will go. [Enter PAGE, SHALLOW, SLENDER, Host, SIR HUGH EVANS, DOCTOR CAIUS, and RUGBY] SHALLOW | | PAGE | Well met, Master Ford. | &C | FORD Trust me, a good knot: I have good cheer at home; and I pray you all go with me. SHALLOW I must excuse myself, Master Ford. SLENDER And so must I, sir: we have appointed to dine with Mistress Anne, and I would not break with her for more money than I'll speak of. SHALLOW We have lingered about a match between Anne Page and my cousin Slender, and this day we shall have our answer. SLENDER I hope I have your good will, father Page. PAGE You have, Master Slender; I stand wholly for you: but my wife, master doctor, is for you altogether. DOCTOR CAIUS Ay, be-gar; and de maid is love-a me: my nursh-a Quickly tell me so mush. Host What say you to young Master Fenton? he capers, he dances, he has eyes of youth, he writes verses, he speaks holiday, he smells April and May: he will carry't, he will carry't; 'tis in his buttons; he will carry't. PAGE Not by my consent, I promise you. The gentleman is of no having: he kept company with the wild prince and Poins; he is of too high a region; he knows too much. No, he shall not knit a knot in his fortunes with the finger of my substance: if he take her, let him take her simply; the wealth I have waits on my consent, and my consent goes not that way. FORD I beseech you heartily, some of you go home with me to dinner: besides your cheer, you shall have sport; I will show you a monster. Master doctor, you shall go; so shall you, Master Page; and you, Sir Hugh. SHALLOW Well, fare you well: we shall have the freer wooing at Master Page's. [Exeunt SHALLOW, and SLENDER] DOCTOR CAIUS Go home, John Rugby; I come anon. [Exit RUGBY] Host Farewell, my hearts: I will to my honest knight Falstaff, and drink canary with him. [Exit] FORD [Aside] I think I shall drink in pipe wine first with him; I'll make him dance. Will you go, gentles? All Have with you to see this monster. [Exeunt] THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR ACT III SCENE III A room in FORD'S house. [Enter MISTRESS FORD and MISTRESS PAGE] MISTRESS FORD What, John! What, Robert! MISTRESS PAGE Quickly, quickly! is the buck-basket-- MISTRESS FORD I warrant. What, Robin, I say! [Enter Servants with a basket] MISTRESS PAGE Come, come, come. MISTRESS FORD Here, set it down. MISTRESS PAGE Give your men the charge; we must be brief. MISTRESS FORD Marry, as I told you before, John and Robert, be ready here hard by in the brew-house: and when I suddenly call you, come forth, and without any pause or staggering take this basket on your shoulders: that done, trudge with it in all haste, and carry it among the whitsters in Datchet-mead, and there empty it in the muddy ditch close by the Thames side. MISTRESS PAGE You will do it? MISTRESS FORD I ha' told them over and over; they lack no direction. Be gone, and come when you are called. [Exeunt Servants] MISTRESS PAGE Here comes little Robin. [Enter ROBIN] MISTRESS FORD How now, my eyas-musket! what news with you? ROBIN My master, Sir John, is come in at your back-door, Mistress Ford, and requests your company. MISTRESS PAGE You little Jack-a-Lent, have you been true to us? ROBIN Ay, I'll be sworn. My master knows not of your being here and hath threatened to put me into everlasting liberty if I tell you of it; for he swears he'll turn me away. MISTRESS PAGE Thou'rt a good boy: this secrecy of thine shall be a tailor to thee and shall make thee a new doublet and hose. I'll go hide me. MISTRESS FORD Do so. Go tell thy master I am alone. [Exit ROBIN] Mistress Page, remember you your cue. MISTRESS PAGE I warrant thee; if I do not act it, hiss me. [Exit] MISTRESS FORD Go to, then: we'll use this unwholesome humidity, this gross watery pumpion; we'll teach him to know turtles from jays. [Enter FALSTAFF] FALSTAFF Have I caught thee, my heavenly jewel? Why, now let me die, for I have lived long enough: this is the period of my ambition: O this blessed hour! MISTRESS FORD O sweet Sir John! FALSTAFF Mistress Ford, I cannot cog, I cannot prate, Mistress Ford. Now shall I sin in my wish: I would thy husband were dead: I'll speak it before the best lord; I would make thee my lady. MISTRESS FORD I your lady, Sir John! alas, I should be a pitiful lady! FALSTAFF Let the court of France show me such another. I see how thine eye would emulate the diamond: thou hast the right arched beauty of the brow that becomes the ship-tire, the tire-valiant, or any tire of Venetian admittance. MISTRESS FORD A plain kerchief, Sir John: my brows become nothing else; nor that well neither. FALSTAFF By the Lord, thou art a traitor to say so: thou wouldst make an absolute courtier; and the firm fixture of thy foot would give an excellent motion to thy gait in a semi-circled farthingale. I see what thou wert, if Fortune thy foe were not, Nature thy friend. Come, thou canst not hide it. MISTRESS FORD Believe me, there is no such thing in me. FALSTAFF What made me love thee? let that persuade thee there's something extraordinary in thee. Come, I cannot cog and say thou art this and that, like a many of these lisping hawthorn-buds, that come like women in men's apparel, and smell like Bucklersbury in simple time; I cannot: but I love thee; none but thee; and thou deservest it. MISTRESS FORD Do not betray me, sir. I fear you love Mistress Page. FALSTAFF Thou mightst as well say I love to walk by the Counter-gate, which is as hateful to me as the reek of a lime-kiln. MISTRESS FORD Well, heaven knows how I love you; and you shall one day find it. FALSTAFF Keep in that mind; I'll deserve it. MISTRESS FORD Nay, I must tell you, so you do; or else I could not be in that mind. ROBIN [Within] Mistress Ford, Mistress Ford! here's Mistress Page at the door, sweating and blowing and looking wildly, and would needs speak with you presently. FALSTAFF She shall not see me: I will ensconce me behind the arras. MISTRESS FORD Pray you, do so: she's a very tattling woman. [FALSTAFF hides himself] [Re-enter MISTRESS PAGE and ROBIN] What's the matter? how now! MISTRESS PAGE O Mistress Ford, what have you done? You're shamed, you're overthrown, you're undone for ever! MISTRESS FORD What's the matter, good Mistress Page? MISTRESS PAGE O well-a-day, Mistress Ford! having an honest man to your husband, to give him such cause of suspicion! MISTRESS FORD What cause of suspicion? MISTRESS PAGE What cause of suspicion! Out pon you! how am I mistook in you! MISTRESS FORD Why, alas, what's the matter? MISTRESS PAGE Your husband's coming hither, woman, with all the officers in Windsor, to search for a gentleman that he says is here now in the house by your consent, to take an ill advantage of his assence: you are undone. MISTRESS FORD 'Tis not so, I hope. MISTRESS PAGE Pray heaven it be not so, that you have such a man here! but 'tis most certain your husband's coming, with half Windsor at his heels, to search for such a one. I come before to tell you. If you know yourself clear, why, I am glad of it; but if you have a friend here convey, convey him out. Be not amazed; call all your senses to you; defend your reputation, or bid farewell to your good life for ever. MISTRESS FORD What shall I do? There is a gentleman my dear friend; and I fear not mine own shame so much as his peril: I had rather than a thousand pound he were out of the house. MISTRESS PAGE For shame! never stand 'you had rather' and 'you had rather:' your husband's here at hand, bethink you of some conveyance: in the house you cannot hide him. O, how have you deceived me! Look, here is a basket: if he be of any reasonable stature, he may creep in here; and throw foul linen upon him, as if it were going to bucking: or--it is whiting-time --send him by your two men to Datchet-mead. MISTRESS FORD He's too big to go in there. What shall I do? FALSTAFF [Coming forward] Let me see't, let me see't, O, let me see't! I'll in, I'll in. Follow your friend's counsel. I'll in. MISTRESS PAGE What, Sir John Falstaff! Are these your letters, knight? FALSTAFF I love thee. Help me away. Let me creep in here. I'll never-- [Gets into the basket; they cover him with foul linen] MISTRESS PAGE Help to cover your master, boy. Call your men, Mistress Ford. You dissembling knight! MISTRESS FORD What, John! Robert! John! [Exit ROBIN] [Re-enter Servants] Go take up these clothes here quickly. Where's the cowl-staff? look, how you drumble! Carry them to the laundress in Datchet-meat; quickly, come. [Enter FORD, PAGE, DOCTOR CAIUS, and SIR HUGH EVANS] FORD Pray you, come near: if I suspect without cause, why then make sport at me; then let me be your jest; I deserve it. How now! whither bear you this? Servant To the laundress, forsooth. MISTRESS FORD Why, what have you to do whither they bear it? You were best meddle with buck-washing. FORD Buck! I would I could wash myself of the buck! Buck, buck, buck! Ay, buck; I warrant you, buck; and of the season too, it shall appear. [Exeunt Servants with the basket] Gentlemen, I have dreamed to-night; I'll tell you my dream. Here, here, here be my keys: ascend my chambers; search, seek, find out: I'll warrant we'll unkennel the fox. Let me stop this way first. [Locking the door] So, now uncape. PAGE Good Master Ford, be contented: you wrong yourself too much. FORD True, Master Page. Up, gentlemen: you shall see sport anon: follow me, gentlemen. [Exit] SIR HUGH EVANS This is fery fantastical humours and jealousies. DOCTOR CAIUS By gar, 'tis no the fashion of France; it is not jealous in France. PAGE Nay, follow him, gentlemen; see the issue of his search. [Exeunt PAGE, DOCTOR CAIUS, and SIR HUGH EVANS] MISTRESS PAGE Is there not a double excellency in this? MISTRESS FORD I know not which pleases me better, that my husband is deceived, or Sir John. MISTRESS PAGE What a taking was he in when your husband asked who was in the basket! MISTRESS FORD I am half afraid he will have need of washing; so throwing him into the water will do him a benefit. MISTRESS PAGE Hang him, dishonest rascal! I would all of the same strain were in the same distress. MISTRESS FORD I think my husband hath some special suspicion of Falstaff's being here; for I never saw him so gross in his jealousy till now. MISTRESS PAGE I will lay a plot to try that; and we will yet have more tricks with Falstaff: his dissolute disease will scarce obey this medicine. MISTRESS FORD Shall we send that foolish carrion, Mistress Quickly, to him, and excuse his throwing into the water; and give him another hope, to betray him to another punishment? MISTRESS PAGE We will do it: let him be sent for to-morrow, eight o'clock, to have amends. [Re-enter FORD, PAGE, DOCTOR CAIUS, and SIR HUGH EVANS] FORD I cannot find him: may be the knave bragged of that he could not compass. MISTRESS PAGE [Aside to MISTRESS FORD] Heard you that? MISTRESS FORD You use me well, Master Ford, do you? FORD Ay, I do so. MISTRESS FORD Heaven make you better than your thoughts! FORD Amen! MISTRESS PAGE You do yourself mighty wrong, Master Ford. FORD Ay, ay; I must bear it. SIR HUGH EVANS If there be any pody in the house, and in the chambers, and in the coffers, and in the presses, heaven forgive my sins at the day of judgment! DOCTOR CAIUS By gar, nor I too: there is no bodies. PAGE Fie, fie, Master Ford! are you not ashamed? What spirit, what devil suggests this imagination? I would not ha' your distemper in this kind for the wealth of Windsor Castle. FORD 'Tis my fault, Master Page: I suffer for it. SIR HUGH EVANS You suffer for a pad conscience: your wife is as honest a 'omans as I will desires among five thousand, and five hundred too. DOCTOR CAIUS By gar, I see 'tis an honest woman. FORD Well, I promised you a dinner. Come, come, walk in the Park: I pray you, pardon me; I will hereafter make known to you why I have done this. Come, wife; come, Mistress Page. I pray you, pardon me; pray heartily, pardon me. PAGE Let's go in, gentlemen; but, trust me, we'll mock him. I do invite you to-morrow morning to my house to breakfast: after, we'll a-birding together; I have a fine hawk for the bush. Shall it be so? FORD Any thing. SIR HUGH EVANS If there is one, I shall make two in the company. DOCTOR CAIUS If dere be one or two, I shall make-a the turd. FORD Pray you, go, Master Page. SIR HUGH EVANS I pray you now, remembrance tomorrow on the lousy knave, mine host. DOCTOR CAIUS Dat is good; by gar, with all my heart! SIR HUGH EVANS A lousy knave, to have his gibes and his mockeries! [Exeunt] THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR ACT III SCENE IV A room in PAGE'S house. [Enter FENTON and ANNE PAGE] FENTON I see I cannot get thy father's love; Therefore no more turn me to him, sweet Nan. ANNE PAGE Alas, how then? FENTON Why, thou must be thyself. He doth object I am too great of birth--, And that, my state being gall'd with my expense, I seek to heal it only by his wealth: Besides these, other bars he lays before me, My riots past, my wild societies; And tells me 'tis a thing impossible I should love thee but as a property. ANNE PAGE May be he tells you true. FENTON No, heaven so speed me in my time to come! Albeit I will confess thy father's wealth Was the first motive that I woo'd thee, Anne: Yet, wooing thee, I found thee of more value Than stamps in gold or sums in sealed bags; And 'tis the very riches of thyself That now I aim at. ANNE PAGE Gentle Master Fenton, Yet seek my father's love; still seek it, sir: If opportunity and humblest suit Cannot attain it, why, then,--hark you hither! [They converse apart] [Enter SHALLOW, SLENDER, and MISTRESS QUICKLY] SHALLOW Break their talk, Mistress Quickly: my kinsman shall speak for himself. SLENDER I'll make a shaft or a bolt on't: 'slid, 'tis but venturing. SHALLOW Be not dismayed. SLENDER No, she shall not dismay me: I care not for that, but that I am afeard. MISTRESS QUICKLY Hark ye; Master Slender would speak a word with you. ANNE PAGE I come to him. [Aside] This is my father's choice. O, what a world of vile ill-favor'd faults Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a-year! MISTRESS QUICKLY And how does good Master Fenton? Pray you, a word with you. SHALLOW She's coming; to her, coz. O boy, thou hadst a father! SLENDER I had a father, Mistress Anne; my uncle can tell you good jests of him. Pray you, uncle, tell Mistress Anne the jest, how my father stole two geese out of a pen, good uncle. SHALLOW Mistress Anne, my cousin loves you. SLENDER Ay, that I do; as well as I love any woman in Gloucestershire. SHALLOW He will maintain you like a gentlewoman. SLENDER Ay, that I will, come cut and long-tail, under the degree of a squire. SHALLOW He will make you a hundred and fifty pounds jointure. ANNE PAGE Good Master Shallow, let him woo for himself. SHALLOW Marry, I thank you for it; I thank you for that good comfort. She calls you, coz: I'll leave you. ANNE PAGE Now, Master Slender,-- SLENDER Now, good Mistress Anne,-- ANNE PAGE What is your will? SLENDER My will! 'od's heartlings, that's a pretty jest indeed! I ne'er made my will yet, I thank heaven; I am not such a sickly creature, I give heaven praise. ANNE PAGE I mean, Master Slender, what would you with me? SLENDER Truly, for mine own part, I would little or nothing with you. Your father and my uncle hath made motions: if it be my luck, so; if not, happy man be his dole! They can tell you how things go better than I can: you may ask your father; here he comes. [Enter PAGE and MISTRESS PAGE] PAGE Now, Master Slender: love him, daughter Anne. Why, how now! what does Master Fenton here? You wrong me, sir, thus still to haunt my house: I told you, sir, my daughter is disposed of. FENTON Nay, Master Page, be not impatient. MISTRESS PAGE Good Master Fenton, come not to my child. PAGE She is no match for you. FENTON Sir, will you hear me? PAGE No, good Master Fenton. Come, Master Shallow; come, son Slender, in. Knowing my mind, you wrong me, Master Fenton. [Exeunt PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER] MISTRESS QUICKLY Speak to Mistress Page. FENTON Good Mistress Page, for that I love your daughter In such a righteous fashion as I do, Perforce, against all cheques, rebukes and manners, I must advance the colours of my love And not retire: let me have your good will. ANNE PAGE Good mother, do not marry me to yond fool. MISTRESS PAGE I mean it not; I seek you a better husband. MISTRESS QUICKLY That's my master, master doctor. ANNE PAGE Alas, I had rather be set quick i' the earth And bowl'd to death with turnips! MISTRESS PAGE Come, trouble not yourself. Good Master Fenton, I will not be your friend nor enemy: My daughter will I question how she loves you, And as I find her, so am I affected. Till then farewell, sir: she must needs go in; Her father will be angry. FENTON Farewell, gentle mistress: farewell, Nan. [Exeunt MISTRESS PAGE and ANNE PAGE] MISTRESS QUICKLY This is my doing, now: 'Nay,' said I, 'will you cast away your child on a fool, and a physician? Look on Master Fenton:' this is my doing. FENTON I thank thee; and I pray thee, once to-night Give my sweet Nan this ring: there's for thy pains. MISTRESS QUICKLY Now heaven send thee good fortune! [Exit FENTON] A kind heart he hath: a woman would run through fire and water for such a kind heart. But yet I would my master had Mistress Anne; or I would Master Slender had her; or, in sooth, I would Master Fenton had her; I will do what I can for them all three; for so I have promised, and I'll be as good as my word; but speciously for Master Fenton. Well, I must of another errand to Sir John Falstaff from my two mistresses: what a beast am I to slack it! [Exit] THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR ACT III SCENE V A room in the Garter Inn. [Enter FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH] FALSTAFF Bardolph, I say,-- BARDOLPH Here, sir. FALSTAFF Go fetch me a quart of sack; put a toast in't. [Exit BARDOLPH] Have I lived to be carried in a basket, like a barrow of butcher's offal, and to be thrown in the Thames? Well, if I be served such another trick, I'll have my brains ta'en out and buttered, and give them to a dog for a new-year's gift. The rogues slighted me into the river with as little remorse as they would have drowned a blind bitch's puppies, fifteen i' the litter: and you may know by my size that I have a kind of alacrity in sinking; if the bottom were as deep as hell, I should down. I had been drowned, but that the shore was shelvy and shallow,--a death that I abhor; for the water swells a man; and what a thing should I have been when I had been swelled! I should have been a mountain of mummy. [Re-enter BARDOLPH with sack] BARDOLPH Here's Mistress Quickly, sir, to speak with you. FALSTAFF Let me pour in some sack to the Thames water; for my belly's as cold as if I had swallowed snowballs for pills to cool the reins. Call her in. BARDOLPH Come in, woman! [Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY] MISTRESS QUICKLY By your leave; I cry you mercy: give your worship good morrow. FALSTAFF Take away these chalices. Go brew me a pottle of sack finely. BARDOLPH With eggs, sir? FALSTAFF Simple of itself; I'll no pullet-sperm in my brewage. [Exit BARDOLPH] How now! MISTRESS QUICKLY Marry, sir, I come to your worship from Mistress Ford. FALSTAFF Mistress Ford! I have had ford enough; I was thrown into the ford; I have my belly full of ford. MISTRESS QUICKLY Alas the day! good heart, that was not her fault: she does so take on with her men; they mistook their erection. FALSTAFF So did I mine, to build upon a foolish woman's promise. MISTRESS QUICKLY Well, she laments, sir, for it, that it would yearn your heart to see it. Her husband goes this morning a-birding; she desires you once more to come to her between eight and nine: I must carry her word quickly: she'll make you amends, I warrant you. FALSTAFF Well, I will visit her: tell her so; and bid her think what a man is: let her consider his frailty, and then judge of my merit. MISTRESS QUICKLY I will tell her. FALSTAFF Do so. Between nine and ten, sayest thou? MISTRESS QUICKLY Eight and nine, sir. FALSTAFF Well, be gone: I will not miss her. MISTRESS QUICKLY Peace be with you, sir. [Exit] FALSTAFF I marvel I hear not of Master Brook; he sent me word to stay within: I like his money well. O, here he comes. [Enter FORD] FORD Bless you, sir! FALSTAFF Now, master Brook, you come to know what hath passed between me and Ford's wife? FORD That, indeed, Sir John, is my business. FALSTAFF Master Brook, I will not lie to you: I was at her house the hour she appointed me. FORD And sped you, sir? FALSTAFF Very ill-favoredly, Master Brook. FORD How so, sir? Did she change her determination? FALSTAFF No, Master Brook; but the peaking Cornuto her husband, Master Brook, dwelling in a continual 'larum of jealousy, comes me in the instant of our encounter, after we had embraced, kissed, protested, and, as it were, spoke the prologue of our comedy; and at his heels a rabble of his companions, thither provoked and instigated by his distemper, and, forsooth, to search his house for his wife's love. FORD What, while you were there? FALSTAFF While I was there. FORD And did he search for you, and could not find you? FALSTAFF You shall hear. As good luck would have it, comes in one Mistress Page; gives intelligence of Ford's approach; and, in her invention and Ford's wife's distraction, they conveyed me into a buck-basket. FORD A buck-basket! FALSTAFF By the Lord, a buck-basket! rammed me in with foul shirts and smocks, socks, foul stockings, greasy napkins; that, Master Brook, there was the rankest compound of villanous smell that ever offended nostril. FORD And how long lay you there? FALSTAFF Nay, you shall hear, Master Brook, what I have suffered to bring this woman to evil for your good. Being thus crammed in the basket, a couple of Ford's knaves, his hinds, were called forth by their mistress to carry me in the name of foul clothes to Datchet-lane: they took me on their shoulders; met the jealous knave their master in the door, who asked them once or twice what they had in their basket: I quaked for fear, lest the lunatic knave would have searched it; but fate, ordaining he should be a cuckold, held his hand. Well: on went he for a search, and away went I for foul clothes. But mark the sequel, Master Brook: I suffered the pangs of three several deaths; first, an intolerable fright, to be detected with a jealous rotten bell-wether; next, to be compassed, like a good bilbo, in the circumference of a peck, hilt to point, heel to head; and then, to be stopped in, like a strong distillation, with stinking clothes that fretted in their own grease: think of that,--a man of my kidney,--think of that,--that am as subject to heat as butter; a man of continual dissolution and thaw: it was a miracle to scape suffocation. And in the height of this bath, when I was more than half stewed in grease, like a Dutch dish, to be thrown into the Thames, and cooled, glowing hot, in that surge, like a horse-shoe; think of that,--hissing hot,--think of that, Master Brook. FORD In good sadness, I am sorry that for my sake you have sufferd all this. My suit then is desperate; you'll undertake her no more? FALSTAFF Master Brook, I will be thrown into Etna, as I have been into Thames, ere I will leave her thus. Her husband is this morning gone a-birding: I have received from her another embassy of meeting; 'twixt eight and nine is the hour, Master Brook. FORD 'Tis past eight already, sir. FALSTAFF Is it? I will then address me to my appointment. Come to me at your convenient leisure, and you shall know how I speed; and the conclusion shall be crowned with your enjoying her. Adieu. You shall have her, Master Brook; Master Brook, you shall cuckold Ford. [Exit] FORD Hum! ha! is this a vision? is this a dream? do I sleep? Master Ford awake! awake, Master Ford! there's a hole made in your best coat, Master Ford. This 'tis to be married! this 'tis to have linen and buck-baskets! Well, I will proclaim myself what I am: I will now take the lecher; he is at my house; he cannot 'scape me; 'tis impossible he should; he cannot creep into a halfpenny purse, nor into a pepper-box: but, lest the devil that guides him should aid him, I will search impossible places. Though what I am I cannot avoid, yet to be what I would not shall not make me tame: if I have horns to make one mad, let the proverb go with me: I'll be horn-mad. [Exit] THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR ACT IV SCENE I A street. [Enter MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS QUICKLY, and WILLIAM PAGE] MISTRESS PAGE Is he at Master Ford's already, think'st thou? MISTRESS QUICKLY Sure he is by this, or will be presently: but, truly, he is very courageous mad about his throwing into the water. Mistress Ford desires you to come suddenly. MISTRESS PAGE I'll be with her by and by; I'll but bring my young man here to school. Look, where his master comes; 'tis a playing-day, I see. [Enter SIR HUGH EVANS] How now, Sir Hugh! no school to-day? SIR HUGH EVANS No; Master Slender is let the boys leave to play. MISTRESS QUICKLY Blessing of his heart! MISTRESS PAGE Sir Hugh, my husband says my son profits nothing in the world at his book. I pray you, ask him some questions in his accidence. SIR HUGH EVANS Come hither, William; hold up your head; come. MISTRESS PAGE Come on, sirrah; hold up your head; answer your master, be not afraid. SIR HUGH EVANS William, how many numbers is in nouns? WILLIAM PAGE Two. MISTRESS QUICKLY Truly, I thought there had been one number more, because they say, ''Od's nouns.' SIR HUGH EVANS Peace your tattlings! What is 'fair,' William? WILLIAM PAGE Pulcher. MISTRESS QUICKLY Polecats! there are fairer things than polecats, sure. SIR HUGH EVANS You are a very simplicity 'oman: I pray you peace. What is 'lapis,' William? WILLIAM PAGE A stone. SIR HUGH EVANS And what is 'a stone,' William? WILLIAM PAGE A pebble. SIR HUGH EVANS No, it is 'lapis:' I pray you, remember in your prain. WILLIAM PAGE Lapis. SIR HUGH EVANS That is a good William. What is he, William, that does lend articles? WILLIAM PAGE Articles are borrowed of the pronoun, and be thus declined, Singulariter, nominativo, hic, haec, hoc. SIR HUGH EVANS Nominativo, hig, hag, hog; pray you, mark: genitivo, hujus. Well, what is your accusative case? WILLIAM PAGE Accusativo, hinc. SIR HUGH EVANS I pray you, have your remembrance, child, accusative, hung, hang, hog. MISTRESS QUICKLY 'Hang-hog' is Latin for bacon, I warrant you. SIR HUGH EVANS Leave your prabbles, 'oman. What is the focative case, William? WILLIAM PAGE O,--vocativo, O. SIR HUGH EVANS Remember, William; focative is caret. MISTRESS QUICKLY And that's a good root. SIR HUGH EVANS 'Oman, forbear. MISTRESS PAGE Peace! SIR HUGH EVANS What is your genitive case plural, William? WILLIAM PAGE Genitive case! SIR HUGH EVANS Ay. WILLIAM PAGE Genitive,--horum, harum, horum. MISTRESS QUICKLY Vengeance of Jenny's case! fie on her! never name her, child, if she be a whore. SIR HUGH EVANS For shame, 'oman. MISTRESS QUICKLY You do ill to teach the child such words: he teaches him to hick and to hack, which they'll do fast enough of themselves, and to call 'horum:' fie upon you! SIR HUGH EVANS 'Oman, art thou lunatics? hast thou no understandings for thy cases and the numbers of the genders? Thou art as foolish Christian creatures as I would desires. MISTRESS PAGE Prithee, hold thy peace. SIR HUGH EVANS Show me now, William, some declensions of your pronouns. WILLIAM PAGE Forsooth, I have forgot. SIR HUGH EVANS It is qui, quae, quod: if you forget your 'quies,' your 'quaes,' and your 'quods,' you must be preeches. Go your ways, and play; go. MISTRESS PAGE He is a better scholar than I thought he was. SIR HUGH EVANS He is a good sprag memory. Farewell, Mistress Page. MISTRESS PAGE Adieu, good Sir Hugh. [Exit SIR HUGH EVANS] Get you home, boy. Come, we stay too long. [Exeunt] THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR ACT IV SCENE II A room in FORD'S house. [Enter FALSTAFF and MISTRESS FORD] FALSTAFF Mistress Ford, your sorrow hath eaten up my sufferance. I see you are obsequious in your love, and I profess requital to a hair's breadth; not only, Mistress Ford, in the simple office of love, but in all the accoutrement, complement and ceremony of it. But are you sure of your husband now? MISTRESS FORD He's a-birding, sweet Sir John. MISTRESS PAGE [Within] What, ho, gossip Ford! what, ho! MISTRESS FORD Step into the chamber, Sir John. [Exit FALSTAFF] [Enter MISTRESS PAGE] MISTRESS PAGE How now, sweetheart! who's at home besides yourself? MISTRESS FORD Why, none but mine own people. MISTRESS PAGE Indeed! MISTRESS FORD No, certainly. [Aside to her] Speak louder. MISTRESS PAGE Truly, I am so glad you have nobody here. MISTRESS FORD Why? MISTRESS PAGE Why, woman, your husband is in his old lunes again: he so takes on yonder with my husband; so rails against all married mankind; so curses all Eve's daughters, of what complexion soever; and so buffets himself on the forehead, crying, 'Peer out, peer out!' that any madness I ever yet beheld seemed but tameness, civility and patience, to this his distemper he is in now: I am glad the fat knight is not here. MISTRESS FORD Why, does he talk of him? MISTRESS PAGE Of none but him; and swears he was carried out, the last time he searched for him, in a basket; protests to my husband he is now here, and hath drawn him and the rest of their company from their sport, to make another experiment of his suspicion: but I am glad the knight is not here; now he shall see his own foolery. MISTRESS FORD How near is he, Mistress Page? MISTRESS PAGE Hard by; at street end; he will be here anon. MISTRESS FORD I am undone! The knight is here. MISTRESS PAGE Why then you are utterly shamed, and he's but a dead man. What a woman are you!--Away with him, away with him! better shame than murder. FORD Which way should be go? how should I bestow him? Shall I put him into the basket again? [Re-enter FALSTAFF] FALSTAFF No, I'll come no more i' the basket. May I not go out ere he come? MISTRESS PAGE Alas, three of Master Ford's brothers watch the door with pistols, that none shall issue out; otherwise you might slip away ere he came. But what make you here? FALSTAFF What shall I do? I'll creep up into the chimney. MISTRESS FORD There they always use to discharge their birding-pieces. Creep into the kiln-hole. FALSTAFF Where is it? MISTRESS FORD He will seek there, on my word. Neither press, coffer, chest, trunk, well, vault, but he hath an abstract for the remembrance of such places, and goes to them by his note: there is no hiding you in the house. FALSTAFF I'll go out then. MISTRESS PAGE If you go out in your own semblance, you die, Sir John. Unless you go out disguised-- MISTRESS FORD How might we disguise him? MISTRESS PAGE Alas the day, I know not! There is no woman's gown big enough for him otherwise he might put on a hat, a muffler and a kerchief, and so escape. FALSTAFF Good hearts, devise something: any extremity rather than a mischief. MISTRESS FORD My maid's aunt, the fat woman of Brentford, has a gown above. MISTRESS PAGE On my word, it will serve him; she's as big as he is: and there's her thrummed hat and her muffler too. Run up, Sir John. MISTRESS FORD Go, go, sweet Sir John: Mistress Page and I will look some linen for your head. MISTRESS PAGE Quick, quick! we'll come dress you straight: put on the gown the while. [Exit FALSTAFF] MISTRESS FORD I would my husband would meet him in this shape: he cannot abide the old woman of Brentford; he swears she's a witch; forbade her my house and hath threatened to beat her. MISTRESS PAGE Heaven guide him to thy husband's cudgel, and the devil guide his cudgel afterwards! MISTRESS FORD But is my husband coming? MISTRESS PAGE Ah, in good sadness, is he; and talks of the basket too, howsoever he hath had intelligence. MISTRESS FORD We'll try that; for I'll appoint my men to carry the basket again, to meet him at the door with it, as they did last time. MISTRESS PAGE Nay, but he'll be here presently: let's go dress him like the witch of Brentford. MISTRESS FORD I'll first direct my men what they shall do with the basket. Go up; I'll bring linen for him straight. [Exit] MISTRESS PAGE Hang him, dishonest varlet! we cannot misuse him enough. We'll leave a proof, by that which we will do, Wives may be merry, and yet honest too: We do not act that often jest and laugh; 'Tis old, but true, Still swine eat all the draff. [Exit] [Re-enter MISTRESS FORD with two Servants] MISTRESS FORD Go, sirs, take the basket again on your shoulders: your master is hard at door; if he bid you set it down, obey him: quickly, dispatch. [Exit] First Servant Come, come, take it up. Second Servant Pray heaven it be not full of knight again. First Servant I hope not; I had as lief bear so much lead. [Enter FORD, PAGE, SHALLOW, DOCTOR CAIUS, and SIR HUGH EVANS] FORD Ay, but if it prove true, Master Page, have you any way then to unfool me again? Set down the basket, villain! Somebody call my wife. Youth in a basket! O you panderly rascals! there's a knot, a ging, a pack, a conspiracy against me: now shall the devil be shamed. What, wife, I say! Come, come forth! Behold what honest clothes you send forth to bleaching! PAGE Why, this passes, Master Ford; you are not to go loose any longer; you must be pinioned. SIR HUGH EVANS Why, this is lunatics! this is mad as a mad dog! SHALLOW Indeed, Master Ford, this is not well, indeed. FORD So say I too, sir. [Re-enter MISTRESS FORD] Come hither, Mistress Ford; Mistress Ford the honest woman, the modest wife, the virtuous creature, that hath the jealous fool to her husband! I suspect without cause, mistress, do I? MISTRESS FORD Heaven be my witness you do, if you suspect me in any dishonesty. FORD Well said, brazen-face! hold it out. Come forth, sirrah! [Pulling clothes out of the basket] PAGE This passes! MISTRESS FORD Are you not ashamed? let the clothes alone. FORD I shall find you anon. SIR HUGH EVANS 'Tis unreasonable! Will you take up your wife's clothes? Come away. FORD Empty the basket, I say! MISTRESS FORD Why, man, why? FORD Master Page, as I am a man, there was one conveyed out of my house yesterday in this basket: why may not he be there again? In my house I am sure he is: my intelligence is true; my jealousy is reasonable. Pluck me out all the linen. MISTRESS FORD If you find a man there, he shall die a flea's death. PAGE Here's no man. SHALLOW By my fidelity, this is not well, Master Ford; this wrongs you. SIR HUGH EVANS Master Ford, you must pray, and not follow the imaginations of your own heart: this is jealousies. FORD Well, he's not here I seek for. PAGE No, nor nowhere else but in your brain. FORD Help to search my house this one time. If I find not what I seek, show no colour for my extremity; let me for ever be your table-sport; let them say of me, 'As jealous as Ford, Chat searched a hollow walnut for his wife's leman.' Satisfy me once more; once more search with me. MISTRESS FORD What, ho, Mistress Page! come you and the old woman down; my husband will come into the chamber. FORD Old woman! what old woman's that? MISTRESS FORD Nay, it is my maid's aunt of Brentford. FORD A witch, a quean, an old cozening quean! Have I not forbid her my house? She comes of errands, does she? We are simple men; we do not know what's brought to pass under the profession of fortune-telling. She works by charms, by spells, by the figure, and such daubery as this is, beyond our element we know nothing. Come down, you witch, you hag, you; come down, I say! MISTRESS FORD Nay, good, sweet husband! Good gentlemen, let him not strike the old woman. [Re-enter FALSTAFF in woman's clothes, and MISTRESS PAGE] MISTRESS PAGE Come, Mother Prat; come, give me your hand. FORD I'll prat her. [Beating him] Out of my door, you witch, you hag, you baggage, you polecat, you runyon! out, out! I'll conjure you, I'll fortune-tell you. [Exit FALSTAFF] MISTRESS PAGE Are you not ashamed? I think you have killed the poor woman. MISTRESS FORD Nay, he will do it. 'Tis a goodly credit for you. FORD Hang her, witch! SIR HUGH EVANS By the yea and no, I think the 'oman is a witch indeed: I like not when a 'oman has a great peard; I spy a great peard under his muffler. FORD Will you follow, gentlemen? I beseech you, follow; see but the issue of my jealousy: if I cry out thus upon no trail, never trust me when I open again. PAGE Let's obey his humour a little further: come, gentlemen. [Exeunt FORD, PAGE, SHALLOW, DOCTOR CAIUS, and SIR HUGH EVANS] MISTRESS PAGE Trust me, he beat him most pitifully. MISTRESS FORD Nay, by the mass, that he did not; he beat him most unpitifully, methought. MISTRESS PAGE I'll have the cudgel hallowed and hung o'er the altar; it hath done meritorious service. MISTRESS FORD What think you? may we, with the warrant of womanhood and the witness of a good conscience, pursue him with any further revenge? MISTRESS PAGE The spirit of wantonness is, sure, scared out of him: if the devil have him not in fee-simple, with fine and recovery, he will never, I think, in the way of waste, attempt us again. MISTRESS FORD Shall we tell our husbands how we have served him? MISTRESS PAGE Yes, by all means; if it be but to scrape the figures out of your husband's brains. If they can find in their hearts the poor unvirtuous fat knight shall be any further afflicted, we two will still be the ministers. MISTRESS FORD I'll warrant they'll have him publicly shamed: and methinks there would be no period to the jest, should he not be publicly shamed. MISTRESS PAGE Come, to the forge with it then; shape it: I would not have things cool. [Exeunt] THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR ACT IV SCENE III A room in the Garter Inn. [Enter Host and BARDOLPH] BARDOLPH Sir, the Germans desire to have three of your horses: the duke himself will be to-morrow at court, and they are going to meet him. Host What duke should that be comes so secretly? I hear not of him in the court. Let me speak with the gentlemen: they speak English? BARDOLPH Ay, sir; I'll call them to you. Host They shall have my horses; but I'll make them pay; I'll sauce them: they have had my house a week at command; I have turned away my other guests: they must come off; I'll sauce them. Come. [Exeunt] THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR ACT IV SCENE IV A room in FORD'S house. [Enter PAGE, FORD, MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD, and SIR HUGH EVANS] SIR HUGH EVANS 'Tis one of the best discretions of a 'oman as ever I did look upon. PAGE And did he send you both these letters at an instant? MISTRESS PAGE Within a quarter of an hour. FORD Pardon me, wife. Henceforth do what thou wilt; I rather will suspect the sun with cold Than thee with wantonness: now doth thy honour stand In him that was of late an heretic, As firm as faith. PAGE 'Tis well, 'tis well; no more: Be not as extreme in submission As in offence. But let our plot go forward: let our wives Yet once again, to make us public sport, Appoint a meeting with this old fat fellow, Where we may take him and disgrace him for it. FORD There is no better way than that they spoke of. PAGE How? to send him word they'll meet him in the park at midnight? Fie, fie! he'll never come. SIR HUGH EVANS You say he has been thrown in the rivers and has been grievously peaten as an old 'oman: methinks there should be terrors in him that he should not come; methinks his flesh is punished, he shall have no desires. PAGE So think I too. MISTRESS FORD Devise but how you'll use him when he comes, And let us two devise to bring him thither. MISTRESS PAGE There is an old tale goes that Herne the hunter, Sometime a keeper here in Windsor forest, Doth all the winter-time, at still midnight, Walk round about an oak, with great ragg'd horns; And there he blasts the tree and takes the cattle And makes milch-kine yield blood and shakes a chain In a most hideous and dreadful manner: You have heard of such a spirit, and well you know The superstitious idle-headed eld Received and did deliver to our age This tale of Herne the hunter for a truth. PAGE Why, yet there want not many that do fear In deep of night to walk by this Herne's oak: But what of this? MISTRESS FORD Marry, this is our device; That Falstaff at that oak shall meet with us. PAGE Well, let it not be doubted but he'll come: And in this shape when you have brought him thither, What shall be done with him? what is your plot? MISTRESS PAGE That likewise have we thought upon, and thus: Nan Page my daughter and my little son And three or four more of their growth we'll dress Like urchins, ouphes and fairies, green and white, With rounds of waxen tapers on their heads, And rattles in their hands: upon a sudden, As Falstaff, she and I, are newly met, Let them from forth a sawpit rush at once With some diffused song: upon their sight, We two in great amazedness will fly: Then let them all encircle him about And, fairy-like, to-pinch the unclean knight, And ask him why, that hour of fairy revel, In their so sacred paths he dares to tread In shape profane. MISTRESS FORD And till he tell the truth, Let the supposed fairies pinch him sound And burn him with their tapers. MISTRESS PAGE The truth being known, We'll all present ourselves, dis-horn the spirit, And mock him home to Windsor. FORD The children must Be practised well to this, or they'll ne'er do't. SIR HUGH EVANS I will teach the children their behaviors; and I will be like a jack-an-apes also, to burn the knight with my taber. FORD That will be excellent. I'll go and buy them vizards. MISTRESS PAGE My Nan shall be the queen of all the fairies, Finely attired in a robe of white. PAGE That silk will I go buy. [Aside] And in that time Shall Master Slender steal my Nan away And marry her at Eton. Go send to Falstaff straight. FORD Nay I'll to him again in name of Brook He'll tell me all his purpose: sure, he'll come. MISTRESS PAGE Fear not you that. Go get us properties And tricking for our fairies. SIR HUGH EVANS Let us about it: it is admirable pleasures and fery honest knaveries. [Exeunt PAGE, FORD, and SIR HUGH EVANS] MISTRESS PAGE Go, Mistress Ford, Send quickly to Sir John, to know his mind. [Exit MISTRESS FORD] I'll to the doctor: he hath my good will, And none but he, to marry with Nan Page. That Slender, though well landed, is an idiot; And he my husband best of all affects. The doctor is well money'd, and his friends Potent at court: he, none but he, shall have her, Though twenty thousand worthier come to crave her. [Exit] THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR ACT IV SCENE V A room in the Garter Inn. [Enter Host and SIMPLE] Host What wouldst thou have, boor? what: thick-skin? speak, breathe, discuss; brief, short, quick, snap. SIMPLE Marry, sir, I come to speak with Sir John Falstaff from Master Slender. Host There's his chamber, his house, his castle, his standing-bed and truckle-bed; 'tis painted about with the story of the Prodigal, fresh and new. Go knock and call; hell speak like an Anthropophaginian unto thee: knock, I say. SIMPLE There's an old woman, a fat woman, gone up into his chamber: I'll be so bold as stay, sir, till she come down; I come to speak with her, indeed. Host Ha! a fat woman! the knight may be robbed: I'll call. Bully knight! bully Sir John! speak from thy lungs military: art thou there? it is thine host, thine Ephesian, calls. FALSTAFF [Above] How now, mine host! Host Here's a Bohemian-Tartar tarries the coming down of thy fat woman. Let her descend, bully, let her descend; my chambers are honourable: fie! privacy? fie! [Enter FALSTAFF] FALSTAFF There was, mine host, an old fat woman even now with me; but she's gone. SIMPLE Pray you, sir, was't not the wise woman of Brentford? FALSTAFF Ay, marry, was it, mussel-shell: what would you with her? SIMPLE My master, sir, Master Slender, sent to her, seeing her go through the streets, to know, sir, whether one Nym, sir, that beguiled him of a chain, had the chain or no. FALSTAFF I spake with the old woman about it. SIMPLE And what says she, I pray, sir? FALSTAFF Marry, she says that the very same man that beguiled Master Slender of his chain cozened him of it. SIMPLE I would I could have spoken with the woman herself; I had other things to have spoken with her too from him. FALSTAFF What are they? let us know. Host Ay, come; quick. SIMPLE I may not conceal them, sir. Host Conceal them, or thou diest. SIMPLE Why, sir, they were nothing but about Mistress Anne Page; to know if it were my master's fortune to have her or no. FALSTAFF 'Tis, 'tis his fortune. SIMPLE What, sir? FALSTAFF To have her, or no. Go; say the woman told me so. SIMPLE May I be bold to say so, sir? FALSTAFF Ay, sir; like who more bold. SIMPLE I thank your worship: I shall make my master glad with these tidings. [Exit] Host Thou art clerkly, thou art clerkly, Sir John. Was there a wise woman with thee? FALSTAFF Ay, that there was, mine host; one that hath taught me more wit than ever I learned before in my life; and I paid nothing for it neither, but was paid for my learning. [Enter BARDOLPH] BARDOLPH Out, alas, sir! cozenage, mere cozenage! Host Where be my horses? speak well of them, varletto. BARDOLPH Run away with the cozeners; for so soon as I came beyond Eton, they threw me off from behind one of them, in a slough of mire; and set spurs and away, like three German devils, three Doctor Faustuses. Host They are gone but to meet the duke, villain: do not say they be fled; Germans are honest men. [Enter SIR HUGH EVANS] SIR HUGH EVANS Where is mine host? Host What is the matter, sir? SIR HUGH EVANS Have a care of your entertainments: there is a friend of mine come to town tells me there is three cozen-germans that has cozened all the hosts of Readins, of Maidenhead, of Colebrook, of horses and money. I tell you for good will, look you: you are wise and full of gibes and vlouting-stocks, and 'tis not convenient you should be cozened. Fare you well. [Exit] [Enter DOCTOR CAIUS] DOCTOR CAIUS Vere is mine host de Jarteer? Host Here, master doctor, in perplexity and doubtful dilemma. DOCTOR CAIUS I cannot tell vat is dat: but it is tell-a me dat you make grand preparation for a duke de Jamany: by my trot, dere is no duke dat the court is know to come. I tell you for good vill: adieu. [Exit] Host Hue and cry, villain, go! Assist me, knight. I am undone! Fly, run, hue and cry, villain! I am undone! [Exeunt Host and BARDOLPH] FALSTAFF I would all the world might be cozened; for I have been cozened and beaten too. If it should come to the ear of the court, how I have been transformed and how my transformation hath been washed and cudgelled, they would melt me out of my fat drop by drop and liquor fishermen's boots with me; I warrant they would whip me with their fine wits till I were as crest-fallen as a dried pear. I never prospered since I forswore myself at primero. Well, if my wind were but long enough to say my prayers, I would repent. [Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY] Now, whence come you? MISTRESS QUICKLY From the two parties, forsooth. FALSTAFF The devil take one party and his dam the other! and so they shall be both bestowed. I have suffered more for their sakes, more than the villanous inconstancy of man's disposition is able to bear. MISTRESS QUICKLY And have not they suffered? Yes, I warrant; speciously one of them; Mistress Ford, good heart, is beaten black and blue, that you cannot see a white spot about her. FALSTAFF What tellest thou me of black and blue? I was beaten myself into all the colours of the rainbow; and I was like to be apprehended for the witch of Brentford: but that my admirable dexterity of wit, my counterfeiting the action of an old woman, delivered me, the knave constable had set me i' the stocks, i' the common stocks, for a witch. MISTRESS QUICKLY Sir, let me speak with you in your chamber: you shall hear how things go; and, I warrant, to your content. Here is a letter will say somewhat. Good hearts, what ado here is to bring you together! Sure, one of you does not serve heaven well, that you are so crossed. FALSTAFF Come up into my chamber. [Exeunt] THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR ACT IV SCENE VI Another room in the Garter Inn. [Enter FENTON and Host] Host Master Fenton, talk not to me; my mind is heavy: I will give over all. FENTON Yet hear me speak. Assist me in my purpose, And, as I am a gentleman, I'll give thee A hundred pound in gold more than your loss. Host I will hear you, Master Fenton; and I will at the least keep your counsel. FENTON From time to time I have acquainted you With the dear love I bear to fair Anne Page; Who mutually hath answer'd my affection, So far forth as herself might be her chooser, Even to my wish: I have a letter from her Of such contents as you will wonder at; The mirth whereof so larded with my matter, That neither singly can be manifested, Without the show of both; fat Falstaff Hath a great scene: the image of the jest I'll show you here at large. Hark, good mine host. To-night at Herne's oak, just 'twixt twelve and one, Must my sweet Nan present the Fairy Queen; The purpose why, is here: in which disguise, While other jests are something rank on foot, Her father hath commanded her to slip Away with Slender and with him at Eton Immediately to marry: she hath consented: Now, sir, Her mother, ever strong against that match And firm for Doctor Caius, hath appointed That he shall likewise shuffle her away, While other sports are tasking of their minds, And at the deanery, where a priest attends, Straight marry her: to this her mother's plot She seemingly obedient likewise hath Made promise to the doctor. Now, thus it rests: Her father means she shall be all in white, And in that habit, when Slender sees his time To take her by the hand and bid her go, She shall go with him: her mother hath intended, The better to denote her to the doctor, For they must all be mask'd and vizarded, That quaint in green she shall be loose enrobed, With ribands pendent, flaring 'bout her head; And when the doctor spies his vantage ripe, To pinch her by the hand, and, on that token, The maid hath given consent to go with him. Host Which means she to deceive, father or mother? FENTON Both, my good host, to go along with me: And here it rests, that you'll procure the vicar To stay for me at church 'twixt twelve and one, And, in the lawful name of marrying, To give our hearts united ceremony. Host Well, husband your device; I'll to the vicar: Bring you the maid, you shall not lack a priest. FENTON So shall I evermore be bound to thee; Besides, I'll make a present recompense. [Exeunt] THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR ACT V SCENE I A room in the Garter Inn. [Enter FALSTAFF and MISTRESS QUICKLY] FALSTAFF Prithee, no more prattling; go. I'll hold. This is the third time; I hope good luck lies in odd numbers. Away I go. They say there is divinity in odd numbers, either in nativity, chance, or death. Away! MISTRESS QUICKLY I'll provide you a chain; and I'll do what I can to get you a pair of horns. FALSTAFF Away, I say; time wears: hold up your head, and mince. [Exit MISTRESS QUICKLY] [Enter FORD] How now, Master Brook! Master Brook, the matter will be known to-night, or never. Be you in the Park about midnight, at Herne's oak, and you shall see wonders. FORD Went you not to her yesterday, sir, as you told me you had appointed? FALSTAFF I went to her, Master Brook, as you see, like a poor old man: but I came from her, Master Brook, like a poor old woman. That same knave Ford, her husband, hath the finest mad devil of jealousy in him, Master Brook, that ever governed frenzy. I will tell you: he beat me grievously, in the shape of a woman; for in the shape of man, Master Brook, I fear not Goliath with a weaver's beam; because I know also life is a shuttle. I am in haste; go along with me: I'll tell you all, Master Brook. Since I plucked geese, played truant and whipped top, I knew not what 'twas to be beaten till lately. Follow me: I'll tell you strange things of this knave Ford, on whom to-night I will be revenged, and I will deliver his wife into your hand. Follow. Strange things in hand, Master Brook! Follow. [Exeunt] THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR ACT V SCENE II Windsor Park. [Enter PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER] PAGE Come, come; we'll couch i' the castle-ditch till we see the light of our fairies. Remember, son Slender, my daughter. SLENDER Ay, forsooth; I have spoke with her and we have a nay-word how to know one another: I come to her in white, and cry 'mum;' she cries 'budget;' and by that we know one another. SHALLOW That's good too: but what needs either your 'mum' or her 'budget?' the white will decipher her well enough. It hath struck ten o'clock. PAGE The night is dark; light and spirits will become it well. Heaven prosper our sport! No man means evil but the devil, and we shall know him by his horns. Let's away; follow me. [Exeunt] THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR ACT V SCENE III A street leading to the Park. [Enter MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD, and DOCTOR CAIUS] MISTRESS PAGE Master doctor, my daughter is in green: when you see your time, take her by the band, away with her to the deanery, and dispatch it quickly. Go before into the Park: we two must go together. DOCTOR CAIUS I know vat I have to do. Adieu. MISTRESS PAGE Fare you well, sir. [Exit DOCTOR CAIUS] My husband will not rejoice so much at the abuse of Falstaff as he will chafe at the doctor's marrying my daughter: but 'tis no matter; better a little chiding than a great deal of heart-break. MISTRESS FORD Where is Nan now and her troop of fairies, and the Welsh devil Hugh? MISTRESS PAGE They are all couched in a pit hard by Herne's oak, with obscured lights; which, at the very instant of Falstaff's and our meeting, they will at once display to the night. MISTRESS FORD That cannot choose but amaze him. MISTRESS PAGE If he be not amazed, he will be mocked; if he be amazed, he will every way be mocked. MISTRESS FORD We'll betray him finely. MISTRESS PAGE Against such lewdsters and their lechery Those that betray them do no treachery. MISTRESS FORD The hour draws on. To the oak, to the oak! [Exeunt] THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR ACT V SCENE IV Windsor Park. [Enter SIR HUGH EVANS, disguised, with others as Fairies] SIR HUGH EVANS Trib, trib, fairies; come; and remember your parts: be pold, I pray you; follow me into the pit; and when I give the watch-'ords, do as I pid you: come, come; trib, trib. [Exeunt] THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR ACT V SCENE V Another part of the Park. [Enter FALSTAFF disguised as Herne] FALSTAFF The Windsor bell hath struck twelve; the minute draws on. Now, the hot-blooded gods assist me! Remember, Jove, thou wast a bull for thy Europa; love set on thy horns. O powerful love! that, in some respects, makes a beast a man, in some other, a man a beast. You were also, Jupiter, a swan for the love of Leda. O omnipotent Love! how near the god drew to the complexion of a goose! A fault done first in the form of a beast. O Jove, a beastly fault! And then another fault in the semblance of a fowl; think on 't, Jove; a foul fault! When gods have hot backs, what shall poor men do? For me, I am here a Windsor stag; and the fattest, I think, i' the forest. Send me a cool rut-time, Jove, or who can blame me to piss my tallow? Who comes here? my doe? [Enter MISTRESS FORD and MISTRESS PAGE] MISTRESS FORD Sir John! art thou there, my deer? my male deer? FALSTAFF My doe with the black scut! Let the sky rain potatoes; let it thunder to the tune of Green Sleeves, hail kissing-comfits and snow eringoes; let there come a tempest of provocation, I will shelter me here. MISTRESS FORD Mistress Page is come with me, sweetheart. FALSTAFF Divide me like a bribe buck, each a haunch: I will keep my sides to myself, my shoulders for the fellow of this walk, and my horns I bequeath your husbands. Am I a woodman, ha? Speak I like Herne the hunter? Why, now is Cupid a child of conscience; he makes restitution. As I am a true spirit, welcome! [Noise within] MISTRESS PAGE Alas, what noise? MISTRESS FORD Heaven forgive our sins FALSTAFF What should this be? MISTRESS FORD | | Away, away! MISTRESS PAGE | [They run off] FALSTAFF I think the devil will not have me damned, lest the oil that's in me should set hell on fire; he would never else cross me thus. [Enter SIR HUGH EVANS, disguised as before; PISTOL, as Hobgoblin; MISTRESS QUICKLY, ANNE PAGE, and others, as Fairies, with tapers] MISTRESS QUICKLY Fairies, black, grey, green, and white, You moonshine revellers and shades of night, You orphan heirs of fixed destiny, Attend your office and your quality. Crier Hobgoblin, make the fairy oyes. PISTOL Elves, list your names; silence, you airy toys. Cricket, to Windsor chimneys shalt thou leap: Where fires thou find'st unraked and hearths unswept, There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry: Our radiant queen hates sluts and sluttery. FALSTAFF They are fairies; he that speaks to them shall die: I'll wink and couch: no man their works must eye. [Lies down upon his face] SIR HUGH EVANS Where's Bede? Go you, and where you find a maid That, ere she sleep, has thrice her prayers said, Raise up the organs of her fantasy; Sleep she as sound as careless infancy: But those as sleep and think not on their sins, Pinch them, arms, legs, backs, shoulders, sides and shins. MISTRESS QUICKLY About, about; Search Windsor Castle, elves, within and out: Strew good luck, ouphes, on every sacred room: That it may stand till the perpetual doom, In state as wholesome as in state 'tis fit, Worthy the owner, and the owner it. The several chairs of order look you scour With juice of balm and every precious flower: Each fair instalment, coat, and several crest, With loyal blazon, evermore be blest! And nightly, meadow-fairies, look you sing, Like to the Garter's compass, in a ring: The expressure that it bears, green let it be, More fertile-fresh than all the field to see; And 'Honi soit qui mal y pense' write In emerald tufts, flowers purple, blue and white; Let sapphire, pearl and rich embroidery, Buckled below fair knighthood's bending knee: Fairies use flowers for their charactery. Away; disperse: but till 'tis one o'clock, Our dance of custom round about the oak Of Herne the hunter, let us not forget. SIR HUGH EVANS Pray you, lock hand in hand; yourselves in order set And twenty glow-worms shall our lanterns be, To guide our measure round about the tree. But, stay; I smell a man of middle-earth. FALSTAFF Heavens defend me from that Welsh fairy, lest he transform me to a piece of cheese! PISTOL Vile worm, thou wast o'erlook'd even in thy birth. MISTRESS QUICKLY With trial-fire touch me his finger-end: If he be chaste, the flame will back descend And turn him to no pain; but if he start, It is the flesh of a corrupted heart. PISTOL A trial, come. SIR HUGH EVANS Come, will this wood take fire? [They burn him with their tapers] FALSTAFF Oh, Oh, Oh! MISTRESS QUICKLY Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire! About him, fairies; sing a scornful rhyme; And, as you trip, still pinch him to your time. SONG. Fie on sinful fantasy! Fie on lust and luxury! Lust is but a bloody fire, Kindled with unchaste desire, Fed in heart, whose flames aspire As thoughts do blow them, higher and higher. Pinch him, fairies, mutually; Pinch him for his villany; Pinch him, and burn him, and turn him about, Till candles and starlight and moonshine be out. [During this song they pinch FALSTAFF. DOCTOR CAIUS comes one way, and steals away a boy in green; SLENDER another way, and takes off a boy in white; and FENTON comes and steals away ANN PAGE. A noise of hunting is heard within. All the Fairies run away. FALSTAFF pulls off his buck's head, and rises] [Enter PAGE, FORD, MISTRESS PAGE, and MISTRESS FORD] PAGE Nay, do not fly; I think we have watch'd you now Will none but Herne the hunter serve your turn? MISTRESS PAGE I pray you, come, hold up the jest no higher Now, good Sir John, how like you Windsor wives? See you these, husband? do not these fair yokes Become the forest better than the town? FORD Now, sir, who's a cuckold now? Master Brook, Falstaff's a knave, a cuckoldly knave; here are his horns, Master Brook: and, Master Brook, he hath enjoyed nothing of Ford's but his buck-basket, his cudgel, and twenty pounds of money, which must be paid to Master Brook; his horses are arrested for it, Master Brook. MISTRESS FORD Sir John, we have had ill luck; we could never meet. I will never take you for my love again; but I will always count you my deer. FALSTAFF I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass. FORD Ay, and an ox too: both the proofs are extant. FALSTAFF And these are not fairies? I was three or four times in the thought they were not fairies: and yet the guiltiness of my mind, the sudden surprise of my powers, drove the grossness of the foppery into a received belief, in despite of the teeth of all rhyme and reason, that they were fairies. See now how wit may be made a Jack-a-Lent, when 'tis upon ill employment! SIR HUGH EVANS Sir John Falstaff, serve Got, and leave your desires, and fairies will not pinse you. FORD Well said, fairy Hugh. SIR HUGH EVANS And leave your jealousies too, I pray you. FORD I will never mistrust my wife again till thou art able to woo her in good English. FALSTAFF Have I laid my brain in the sun and dried it, that it wants matter to prevent so gross o'erreaching as this? Am I ridden with a Welsh goat too? shall I have a coxcomb of frize? 'Tis time I were choked with a piece of toasted cheese. SIR HUGH EVANS Seese is not good to give putter; your belly is all putter. FALSTAFF 'Seese' and 'putter'! have I lived to stand at the taunt of one that makes fritters of English? This is enough to be the decay of lust and late-walking through the realm. MISTRESS PAGE Why Sir John, do you think, though we would have the virtue out of our hearts by the head and shoulders and have given ourselves without scruple to hell, that ever the devil could have made you our delight? FORD What, a hodge-pudding? a bag of flax? MISTRESS PAGE A puffed man? PAGE Old, cold, withered and of intolerable entrails? FORD And one that is as slanderous as Satan? PAGE And as poor as Job? FORD And as wicked as his wife? SIR HUGH EVANS And given to fornications, and to taverns and sack and wine and metheglins, and to drinkings and swearings and starings, pribbles and prabbles? FALSTAFF Well, I am your theme: you have the start of me; I am dejected; I am not able to answer the Welsh flannel; ignorance itself is a plummet o'er me: use me as you will. FORD Marry, sir, we'll bring you to Windsor, to one Master Brook, that you have cozened of money, to whom you should have been a pander: over and above that you have suffered, I think to repay that money will be a biting affliction. PAGE Yet be cheerful, knight: thou shalt eat a posset to-night at my house; where I will desire thee to laugh at my wife, that now laughs at thee: tell her Master Slender hath married her daughter. MISTRESS PAGE [Aside] Doctors doubt that: if Anne Page be my daughter, she is, by this, Doctor Caius' wife. [Enter SLENDER] SLENDER Whoa ho! ho, father Page! PAGE Son, how now! how now, son! have you dispatched? SLENDER Dispatched! I'll make the best in Gloucestershire know on't; would I were hanged, la, else. PAGE Of what, son? SLENDER I came yonder at Eton to marry Mistress Anne Page, and she's a great lubberly boy. If it had not been i' the church, I would have swinged him, or he should have swinged me. If I did not think it had been Anne Page, would I might never stir!--and 'tis a postmaster's boy. PAGE Upon my life, then, you took the wrong. SLENDER What need you tell me that? I think so, when I took a boy for a girl. If I had been married to him, for all he was in woman's apparel, I would not have had him. PAGE Why, this is your own folly. Did not I tell you how you should know my daughter by her garments? SLENDER I went to her in white, and cried 'mum,' and she cried 'budget,' as Anne and I had appointed; and yet it was not Anne, but a postmaster's boy. MISTRESS PAGE Good George, be not angry: I knew of your purpose; turned my daughter into green; and, indeed, she is now with the doctor at the deanery, and there married. [Enter DOCTOR CAIUS] DOCTOR CAIUS Vere is Mistress Page? By gar, I am cozened: I ha' married un garcon, a boy; un paysan, by gar, a boy; it is not Anne Page: by gar, I am cozened. MISTRESS PAGE Why, did you take her in green? DOCTOR CAIUS Ay, by gar, and 'tis a boy: by gar, I'll raise all Windsor. [Exit] FORD This is strange. Who hath got the right Anne? PAGE My heart misgives me: here comes Master Fenton. [Enter FENTON and ANNE PAGE] How now, Master Fenton! ANNE PAGE Pardon, good father! good my mother, pardon! PAGE Now, mistress, how chance you went not with Master Slender? MISTRESS PAGE Why went you not with master doctor, maid? FENTON You do amaze her: hear the truth of it. You would have married her most shamefully, Where there was no proportion held in love. The truth is, she and I, long since contracted, Are now so sure that nothing can dissolve us. The offence is holy that she hath committed; And this deceit loses the name of craft, Of disobedience, or unduteous title, Since therein she doth evitate and shun A thousand irreligious cursed hours, Which forced marriage would have brought upon her. FORD Stand not amazed; here is no remedy: In love the heavens themselves do guide the state; Money buys lands, and wives are sold by fate. FALSTAFF I am glad, though you have ta'en a special stand to strike at me, that your arrow hath glanced. PAGE Well, what remedy? Fenton, heaven give thee joy! What cannot be eschew'd must be embraced. FALSTAFF When night-dogs run, all sorts of deer are chased. MISTRESS PAGE Well, I will muse no further. Master Fenton, Heaven give you many, many merry days! Good husband, let us every one go home, And laugh this sport o'er by a country fire; Sir John and all. FORD Let it be so. Sir John, To Master Brook you yet shall hold your word For he tonight shall lie with Mistress Ford. [Exeunt] A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM DRAMATIS PERSONAE THESEUS Duke of Athens. EGEUS father to Hermia. LYSANDER | | in love with Hermia. DEMETRIUS | PHILOSTRATE master of the revels to Theseus. QUINCE a carpenter. SNUG a joiner. BOTTOM a weaver. FLUTE a bellows-mender. SNOUT a tinker. STARVELING a tailor. HIPPOLYTA queen of the Amazons, betrothed to Theseus. HERMIA daughter to Egeus, in love with Lysander. HELENA in love with Demetrius. OBERON king of the fairies. TITANIA queen of the fairies. PUCK or Robin Goodfellow. PEASEBLOSSOM | | COBWEB | | fairies. MOTH | | MUSTARDSEED | Other fairies attending their King and Queen. Attendants on Theseus and Hippolyta. SCENE Athens, and a wood near it. A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM ACT I SCENE I Athens. The palace of THESEUS. [Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE, and Attendants] THESEUS Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour Draws on apace; four happy days bring in Another moon: but, O, methinks, how slow This old moon wanes! she lingers my desires, Like to a step-dame or a dowager Long withering out a young man revenue. HIPPOLYTA Four days will quickly steep themselves in night; Four nights will quickly dream away the time; And then the moon, like to a silver bow New-bent in heaven, shall behold the night Of our solemnities. THESEUS Go, Philostrate, Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments; Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth; Turn melancholy forth to funerals; The pale companion is not for our pomp. [Exit PHILOSTRATE] Hippolyta, I woo'd thee with my sword, And won thy love, doing thee injuries; But I will wed thee in another key, With pomp, with triumph and with revelling. [Enter EGEUS, HERMIA, LYSANDER, and DEMETRIUS] EGEUS Happy be Theseus, our renowned duke! THESEUS Thanks, good Egeus: what's the news with thee? EGEUS Full of vexation come I, with complaint Against my child, my daughter Hermia. Stand forth, Demetrius. My noble lord, This man hath my consent to marry her. Stand forth, Lysander: and my gracious duke, This man hath bewitch'd the bosom of my child; Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes, And interchanged love-tokens with my child: Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung, With feigning voice verses of feigning love, And stolen the impression of her fantasy With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gawds, conceits, Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats, messengers Of strong prevailment in unharden'd youth: With cunning hast thou filch'd my daughter's heart, Turn'd her obedience, which is due to me, To stubborn harshness: and, my gracious duke, Be it so she; will not here before your grace Consent to marry with Demetrius, I beg the ancient privilege of Athens, As she is mine, I may dispose of her: Which shall be either to this gentleman Or to her death, according to our law Immediately provided in that case. THESEUS What say you, Hermia? be advised fair maid: To you your father should be as a god; One that composed your beauties, yea, and one To whom you are but as a form in wax By him imprinted and within his power To leave the figure or disfigure it. Demetrius is a worthy gentleman. HERMIA So is Lysander. THESEUS In himself he is; But in this kind, wanting your father's voice, The other must be held the worthier. HERMIA I would my father look'd but with my eyes. THESEUS Rather your eyes must with his judgment look. HERMIA I do entreat your grace to pardon me. I know not by what power I am made bold, Nor how it may concern my modesty, In such a presence here to plead my thoughts; But I beseech your grace that I may know The worst that may befall me in this case, If I refuse to wed Demetrius. THESEUS Either to die the death or to abjure For ever the society of men. Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires; Know of your youth, examine well your blood, Whether, if you yield not to your father's choice, You can endure the livery of a nun, For aye to be in shady cloister mew'd, To live a barren sister all your life, Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon. Thrice-blessed they that master so their blood, To undergo such maiden pilgrimage; But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd, Than that which withering on the virgin thorn Grows, lives and dies in single blessedness. HERMIA So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord, Ere I will my virgin patent up Unto his lordship, whose unwished yoke My soul consents not to give sovereignty. THESEUS Take time to pause; and, by the nest new moon-- The sealing-day betwixt my love and me, For everlasting bond of fellowship-- Upon that day either prepare to die For disobedience to your father's will, Or else to wed Demetrius, as he would; Or on Diana's altar to protest For aye austerity and single life. DEMETRIUS Relent, sweet Hermia: and, Lysander, yield Thy crazed title to my certain right. LYSANDER You have her father's love, Demetrius; Let me have Hermia's: do you marry him. EGEUS Scornful Lysander! true, he hath my love, And what is mine my love shall render him. And she is mine, and all my right of her I do estate unto Demetrius. LYSANDER I am, my lord, as well derived as he, As well possess'd; my love is more than his; My fortunes every way as fairly rank'd, If not with vantage, as Demetrius'; And, which is more than all these boasts can be, I am beloved of beauteous Hermia: Why should not I then prosecute my right? Demetrius, I'll avouch it to his head, Made love to Nedar's daughter, Helena, And won her soul; and she, sweet lady, dotes, Devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry, Upon this spotted and inconstant man. THESEUS I must confess that I have heard so much, And with Demetrius thought to have spoke thereof; But, being over-full of self-affairs, My mind did lose it. But, Demetrius, come; And come, Egeus; you shall go with me, I have some private schooling for you both. For you, fair Hermia, look you arm yourself To fit your fancies to your father's will; Or else the law of Athens yields you up-- Which by no means we may extenuate-- To death, or to a vow of single life. Come, my Hippolyta: what cheer, my love? Demetrius and Egeus, go along: I must employ you in some business Against our nuptial and confer with you Of something nearly that concerns yourselves. EGEUS With duty and desire we follow you. [Exeunt all but LYSANDER and HERMIA] LYSANDER How now, my love! why is your cheek so pale? How chance the roses there do fade so fast? HERMIA Belike for want of rain, which I could well Beteem them from the tempest of my eyes. LYSANDER Ay me! for aught that I could ever read, Could ever hear by tale or history, The course of true love never did run smooth; But, either it was different in blood,-- HERMIA O cross! too high to be enthrall'd to low. LYSANDER Or else misgraffed in respect of years,-- HERMIA O spite! too old to be engaged to young. LYSANDER Or else it stood upon the choice of friends,-- HERMIA O hell! to choose love by another's eyes. LYSANDER Or, if there were a sympathy in choice, War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it, Making it momentany as a sound, Swift as a shadow, short as any dream; Brief as the lightning in the collied night, That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth, And ere a man hath power to say 'Behold!' The jaws of darkness do devour it up: So quick bright things come to confusion. HERMIA If then true lovers have been ever cross'd, It stands as an edict in destiny: Then let us teach our trial patience, Because it is a customary cross, As due to love as thoughts and dreams and sighs, Wishes and tears, poor fancy's followers. LYSANDER A good persuasion: therefore, hear me, Hermia. I have a widow aunt, a dowager Of great revenue, and she hath no child: From Athens is her house remote seven leagues; And she respects me as her only son. There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee; And to that place the sharp Athenian law Cannot pursue us. If thou lovest me then, Steal forth thy father's house to-morrow night; And in the wood, a league without the town, Where I did meet thee once with Helena, To do observance to a morn of May, There will I stay for thee. HERMIA My good Lysander! I swear to thee, by Cupid's strongest bow, By his best arrow with the golden head, By the simplicity of Venus' doves, By that which knitteth souls and prospers loves, And by that fire which burn'd the Carthage queen, When the false Troyan under sail was seen, By all the vows that ever men have broke, In number more than ever women spoke, In that same place thou hast appointed me, To-morrow truly will I meet with thee. LYSANDER Keep promise, love. Look, here comes Helena. [Enter HELENA] HERMIA God speed fair Helena! whither away? HELENA Call you me fair? that fair again unsay. Demetrius loves your fair: O happy fair! Your eyes are lode-stars; and your tongue's sweet air More tuneable than lark to shepherd's ear, When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear. Sickness is catching: O, were favour so, Yours would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go; My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye, My tongue should catch your tongue's sweet melody. Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated, The rest I'd give to be to you translated. O, teach me how you look, and with what art You sway the motion of Demetrius' heart. HERMIA I frown upon him, yet he loves me still. HELENA O that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill! HERMIA I give him curses, yet he gives me love. HELENA O that my prayers could such affection move! HERMIA The more I hate, the more he follows me. HELENA The more I love, the more he hateth me. HERMIA His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine. HELENA None, but your beauty: would that fault were mine! HERMIA Take comfort: he no more shall see my face; Lysander and myself will fly this place. Before the time I did Lysander see, Seem'd Athens as a paradise to me: O, then, what graces in my love do dwell, That he hath turn'd a heaven unto a hell! LYSANDER Helen, to you our minds we will unfold: To-morrow night, when Phoebe doth behold Her silver visage in the watery glass, Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass, A time that lovers' flights doth still conceal, Through Athens' gates have we devised to steal. HERMIA And in the wood, where often you and I Upon faint primrose-beds were wont to lie, Emptying our bosoms of their counsel sweet, There my Lysander and myself shall meet; And thence from Athens turn away our eyes, To seek new friends and stranger companies. Farewell, sweet playfellow: pray thou for us; And good luck grant thee thy Demetrius! Keep word, Lysander: we must starve our sight From lovers' food till morrow deep midnight. LYSANDER I will, my Hermia. [Exit HERMIA] Helena, adieu: As you on him, Demetrius dote on you! [Exit] HELENA How happy some o'er other some can be! Through Athens I am thought as fair as she. But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so; He will not know what all but he do know: And as he errs, doting on Hermia's eyes, So I, admiring of his qualities: Things base and vile, folding no quantity, Love can transpose to form and dignity: Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind: Nor hath Love's mind of any judgement taste; Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste: And therefore is Love said to be a child, Because in choice he is so oft beguiled. As waggish boys in game themselves forswear, So the boy Love is perjured every where: For ere Demetrius look'd on Hermia's eyne, He hail'd down oaths that he was only mine; And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt, So he dissolved, and showers of oaths did melt. I will go tell him of fair Hermia's flight: Then to the wood will he to-morrow night Pursue her; and for this intelligence If I have thanks, it is a dear expense: But herein mean I to enrich my pain, To have his sight thither and back again. [Exit] A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM ACT I SCENE II Athens. QUINCE'S house. [Enter QUINCE, SNUG, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING] QUINCE Is all our company here? BOTTOM You were best to call them generally, man by man, according to the scrip. QUINCE Here is the scroll of every man's name, which is thought fit, through all Athens, to play in our interlude before the duke and the duchess, on his wedding-day at night. BOTTOM First, good Peter Quince, say what the play treats on, then read the names of the actors, and so grow to a point. QUINCE Marry, our play is, The most lamentable comedy, and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisby. BOTTOM A very good piece of work, I assure you, and a merry. Now, good Peter Quince, call forth your actors by the scroll. Masters, spread yourselves. QUINCE Answer as I call you. Nick Bottom, the weaver. BOTTOM Ready. Name what part I am for, and proceed. QUINCE You, Nick Bottom, are set down for Pyramus. BOTTOM What is Pyramus? a lover, or a tyrant? QUINCE A lover, that kills himself most gallant for love. BOTTOM That will ask some tears in the true performing of it: if I do it, let the audience look to their eyes; I will move storms, I will condole in some measure. To the rest: yet my chief humour is for a tyrant: I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a cat in, to make all split. The raging rocks And shivering shocks Shall break the locks Of prison gates; And Phibbus' car Shall shine from far And make and mar The foolish Fates. This was lofty! Now name the rest of the players. This is Ercles' vein, a tyrant's vein; a lover is more condoling. QUINCE Francis Flute, the bellows-mender. FLUTE Here, Peter Quince. QUINCE Flute, you must take Thisby on you. FLUTE What is Thisby? a wandering knight? QUINCE It is the lady that Pyramus must love. FLUTE Nay, faith, let me not play a woman; I have a beard coming. QUINCE That's all one: you shall play it in a mask, and you may speak as small as you will. BOTTOM An I may hide my face, let me play Thisby too, I'll speak in a monstrous little voice. 'Thisne, Thisne;' 'Ah, Pyramus, lover dear! thy Thisby dear, and lady dear!' QUINCE No, no; you must play Pyramus: and, Flute, you Thisby. BOTTOM Well, proceed. QUINCE Robin Starveling, the tailor. STARVELING Here, Peter Quince. QUINCE Robin Starveling, you must play Thisby's mother. Tom Snout, the tinker. SNOUT Here, Peter Quince. QUINCE You, Pyramus' father: myself, Thisby's father: Snug, the joiner; you, the lion's part: and, I hope, here is a play fitted. SNUG Have you the lion's part written? pray you, if it be, give it me, for I am slow of study. QUINCE You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring. BOTTOM Let me play the lion too: I will roar, that I will do any man's heart good to hear me; I will roar, that I will make the duke say 'Let him roar again, let him roar again.' QUINCE An you should do it too terribly, you would fright the duchess and the ladies, that they would shriek; and that were enough to hang us all. ALL That would hang us, every mother's son. BOTTOM I grant you, friends, if that you should fright the ladies out of their wits, they would have no more discretion but to hang us: but I will aggravate my voice so that I will roar you as gently as any sucking dove; I will roar you an 'twere any nightingale. QUINCE You can play no part but Pyramus; for Pyramus is a sweet-faced man; a proper man, as one shall see in a summer's day; a most lovely gentleman-like man: therefore you must needs play Pyramus. BOTTOM Well, I will undertake it. What beard were I best to play it in? QUINCE Why, what you will. BOTTOM I will discharge it in either your straw-colour beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your French-crown-colour beard, your perfect yellow. QUINCE Some of your French crowns have no hair at all, and then you will play bare-faced. But, masters, here are your parts: and I am to entreat you, request you and desire you, to con them by to-morrow night; and meet me in the palace wood, a mile without the town, by moonlight; there will we rehearse, for if we meet in the city, we shall be dogged with company, and our devices known. In the meantime I will draw a bill of properties, such as our play wants. I pray you, fail me not. BOTTOM We will meet; and there we may rehearse most obscenely and courageously. Take pains; be perfect: adieu. QUINCE At the duke's oak we meet. BOTTOM Enough; hold or cut bow-strings. [Exeunt] A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM ACT II SCENE I A wood near Athens. [Enter, from opposite sides, a Fairy, and PUCK] PUCK How now, spirit! whither wander you? Fairy Over hill, over dale, Thorough bush, thorough brier, Over park, over pale, Thorough flood, thorough fire, I do wander everywhere, Swifter than the moon's sphere; And I serve the fairy queen, To dew her orbs upon the green. The cowslips tall her pensioners be: In their gold coats spots you see; Those be rubies, fairy favours, In those freckles live their savours: I must go seek some dewdrops here And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear. Farewell, thou lob of spirits; I'll be gone: Our queen and all our elves come here anon. PUCK The king doth keep his revels here to-night: Take heed the queen come not within his sight; For Oberon is passing fell and wrath, Because that she as her attendant hath A lovely boy, stolen from an Indian king; She never had so sweet a changeling; And jealous Oberon would have the child Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild; But she perforce withholds the loved boy, Crowns him with flowers and makes him all her joy: And now they never meet in grove or green, By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen, But, they do square, that all their elves for fear Creep into acorn-cups and hide them there. Fairy Either I mistake your shape and making quite, Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite Call'd Robin Goodfellow: are not you he That frights the maidens of the villagery; Skim milk, and sometimes labour in the quern And bootless make the breathless housewife churn; And sometime make the drink to bear no barm; Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm? Those that Hobgoblin call you and sweet Puck, You do their work, and they shall have good luck: Are not you he? PUCK Thou speak'st aright; I am that merry wanderer of the night. I jest to Oberon and make him smile When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile, Neighing in likeness of a filly foal: And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl, In very likeness of a roasted crab, And when she drinks, against her lips I bob And on her wither'd dewlap pour the ale. The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale, Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me; Then slip I from her bum, down topples she, And 'tailor' cries, and falls into a cough; And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh, And waxen in their mirth and neeze and swear A merrier hour was never wasted there. But, room, fairy! here comes Oberon. Fairy And here my mistress. Would that he were gone! [Enter, from one side, OBERON, with his train; from the other, TITANIA, with hers] OBERON Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania. TITANIA What, jealous Oberon! Fairies, skip hence: I have forsworn his bed and company. OBERON Tarry, rash wanton: am not I thy lord? TITANIA Then I must be thy lady: but I know When thou hast stolen away from fairy land, And in the shape of Corin sat all day, Playing on pipes of corn and versing love To amorous Phillida. Why art thou here, Come from the farthest Steppe of India? But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon, Your buskin'd mistress and your warrior love, To Theseus must be wedded, and you come To give their bed joy and prosperity. OBERON How canst thou thus for shame, Titania, Glance at my credit with Hippolyta, Knowing I know thy love to Theseus? Didst thou not lead him through the glimmering night From Perigenia, whom he ravished? And make him with fair AEgle break his faith, With Ariadne and Antiopa? TITANIA These are the forgeries of jealousy: And never, since the middle summer's spring, Met we on hill, in dale, forest or mead, By paved fountain or by rushy brook, Or in the beached margent of the sea, To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind, But with thy brawls thou hast disturb'd our sport. Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain, As in revenge, have suck'd up from the sea Contagious fogs; which falling in the land Have every pelting river made so proud That they have overborne their continents: The ox hath therefore stretch'd his yoke in vain, The ploughman lost his sweat, and the green corn Hath rotted ere his youth attain'd a beard; The fold stands empty in the drowned field, And crows are fatted with the murrion flock; The nine men's morris is fill'd up with mud, And the quaint mazes in the wanton green For lack of tread are undistinguishable: The human mortals want their winter here; No night is now with hymn or carol blest: Therefore the moon, the governess of floods, Pale in her anger, washes all the air, That rheumatic diseases do abound: And thorough this distemperature we see The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts Far in the fresh lap of the crimson rose, And on old Hiems' thin and icy crown An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds Is, as in mockery, set: the spring, the summer, The childing autumn, angry winter, change Their wonted liveries, and the mazed world, By their increase, now knows not which is which: And this same progeny of evils comes From our debate, from our dissension; We are their parents and original. OBERON Do you amend it then; it lies in you: Why should Titania cross her Oberon? I do but beg a little changeling boy, To be my henchman. TITANIA Set your heart at rest: The fairy land buys not the child of me. His mother was a votaress of my order: And, in the spiced Indian air, by night, Full often hath she gossip'd by my side, And sat with me on Neptune's yellow sands, Marking the embarked traders on the flood, When we have laugh'd to see the sails conceive And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind; Which she, with pretty and with swimming gait Following,--her womb then rich with my young squire,-- Would imitate, and sail upon the land, To fetch me trifles, and return again, As from a voyage, rich with merchandise. But she, being mortal, of that boy did die; And for her sake do I rear up her boy, And for her sake I will not part with him. OBERON How long within this wood intend you stay? TITANIA Perchance till after Theseus' wedding-day. If you will patiently dance in our round And see our moonlight revels, go with us; If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts. OBERON Give me that boy, and I will go with thee. TITANIA Not for thy fairy kingdom. Fairies, away! We shall chide downright, if I longer stay. [Exit TITANIA with her train] OBERON Well, go thy way: thou shalt not from this grove Till I torment thee for this injury. My gentle Puck, come hither. Thou rememberest Since once I sat upon a promontory, And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath That the rude sea grew civil at her song And certain stars shot madly from their spheres, To hear the sea-maid's music. PUCK I remember. OBERON That very time I saw, but thou couldst not, Flying between the cold moon and the earth, Cupid all arm'd: a certain aim he took At a fair vestal throned by the west, And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow, As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts; But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft Quench'd in the chaste beams of the watery moon, And the imperial votaress passed on, In maiden meditation, fancy-free. Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell: It fell upon a little western flower, Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound, And maidens call it love-in-idleness. Fetch me that flower; the herb I shew'd thee once: The juice of it on sleeping eye-lids laid Will make or man or woman madly dote Upon the next live creature that it sees. Fetch me this herb; and be thou here again Ere the leviathan can swim a league. PUCK I'll put a girdle round about the earth In forty minutes. [Exit] OBERON Having once this juice, I'll watch Titania when she is asleep, And drop the liquor of it in her eyes. The next thing then she waking looks upon, Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull, On meddling monkey, or on busy ape, She shall pursue it with the soul of love: And ere I take this charm from off her sight, As I can take it with another herb, I'll make her render up her page to me. But who comes here? I am invisible; And I will overhear their conference. [Enter DEMETRIUS, HELENA, following him] DEMETRIUS I love thee not, therefore pursue me not. Where is Lysander and fair Hermia? The one I'll slay, the other slayeth me. Thou told'st me they were stolen unto this wood; And here am I, and wode within this wood, Because I cannot meet my Hermia. Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more. HELENA You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant; But yet you draw not iron, for my heart Is true as steel: leave you your power to draw, And I shall have no power to follow you. DEMETRIUS Do I entice you? do I speak you fair? Or, rather, do I not in plainest truth Tell you, I do not, nor I cannot love you? HELENA And even for that do I love you the more. I am your spaniel; and, Demetrius, The more you beat me, I will fawn on you: Use me but as your spaniel, spurn me, strike me, Neglect me, lose me; only give me leave, Unworthy as I am, to follow you. What worser place can I beg in your love,-- And yet a place of high respect with me,-- Than to be used as you use your dog? DEMETRIUS Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit; For I am sick when I do look on thee. HELENA And I am sick when I look not on you. DEMETRIUS You do impeach your modesty too much, To leave the city and commit yourself Into the hands of one that loves you not; To trust the opportunity of night And the ill counsel of a desert place With the rich worth of your virginity. HELENA Your virtue is my privilege: for that It is not night when I do see your face, Therefore I think I am not in the night; Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company, For you in my respect are all the world: Then how can it be said I am alone, When all the world is here to look on me? DEMETRIUS I'll run from thee and hide me in the brakes, And leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts. HELENA The wildest hath not such a heart as you. Run when you will, the story shall be changed: Apollo flies, and Daphne holds the chase; The dove pursues the griffin; the mild hind Makes speed to catch the tiger; bootless speed, When cowardice pursues and valour flies. DEMETRIUS I will not stay thy questions; let me go: Or, if thou follow me, do not believe But I shall do thee mischief in the wood. HELENA Ay, in the temple, in the town, the field, You do me mischief. Fie, Demetrius! Your wrongs do set a scandal on my sex: We cannot fight for love, as men may do; We should be wood and were not made to woo. [Exit DEMETRIUS] I'll follow thee and make a heaven of hell, To die upon the hand I love so well. [Exit] OBERON Fare thee well, nymph: ere he do leave this grove, Thou shalt fly him and he shall seek thy love. [Re-enter PUCK] Hast thou the flower there? Welcome, wanderer. PUCK Ay, there it is. OBERON I pray thee, give it me. I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine: There sleeps Titania sometime of the night, Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight; And there the snake throws her enamell'd skin, Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in: And with the juice of this I'll streak her eyes, And make her full of hateful fantasies. Take thou some of it, and seek through this grove: A sweet Athenian lady is in love With a disdainful youth: anoint his eyes; But do it when the next thing he espies May be the lady: thou shalt know the man By the Athenian garments he hath on. Effect it with some care, that he may prove More fond on her than she upon her love: And look thou meet me ere the first cock crow. PUCK Fear not, my lord, your servant shall do so. [Exeunt] A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM ACT II SCENE II Another part of the wood. [Enter TITANIA, with her train] TITANIA Come, now a roundel and a fairy song; Then, for the third part of a minute, hence; Some to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds, Some war with rere-mice for their leathern wings, To make my small elves coats, and some keep back The clamorous owl that nightly hoots and wonders At our quaint spirits. Sing me now asleep; Then to your offices and let me rest. [The Fairies sing] You spotted snakes with double tongue, Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen; Newts and blind-worms, do no wrong, Come not near our fairy queen. Philomel, with melody Sing in our sweet lullaby; Lulla, lulla, lullaby, lulla, lulla, lullaby: Never harm, Nor spell nor charm, Come our lovely lady nigh; So, good night, with lullaby. Weaving spiders, come not here; Hence, you long-legg'd spinners, hence! Beetles black, approach not near; Worm nor snail, do no offence. Philomel, with melody, &c. Fairy Hence, away! now all is well: One aloof stand sentinel. [Exeunt Fairies. TITANIA sleeps] [Enter OBERON and squeezes the flower on TITANIA's eyelids] OBERON What thou seest when thou dost wake, Do it for thy true-love take, Love and languish for his sake: Be it ounce, or cat, or bear, Pard, or boar with bristled hair, In thy eye that shall appear When thou wakest, it is thy dear: Wake when some vile thing is near. [Exit] [Enter LYSANDER and HERMIA] LYSANDER Fair love, you faint with wandering in the wood; And to speak troth, I have forgot our way: We'll rest us, Hermia, if you think it good, And tarry for the comfort of the day. HERMIA Be it so, Lysander: find you out a bed; For I upon this bank will rest my head. LYSANDER One turf shall serve as pillow for us both; One heart, one bed, two bosoms and one troth. HERMIA Nay, good Lysander; for my sake, my dear, Lie further off yet, do not lie so near. LYSANDER O, take the sense, sweet, of my innocence! Love takes the meaning in love's conference. I mean, that my heart unto yours is knit So that but one heart we can make of it; Two bosoms interchained with an oath; So then two bosoms and a single troth. Then by your side no bed-room me deny; For lying so, Hermia, I do not lie. HERMIA Lysander riddles very prettily: Now much beshrew my manners and my pride, If Hermia meant to say Lysander lied. But, gentle friend, for love and courtesy Lie further off; in human modesty, Such separation as may well be said Becomes a virtuous bachelor and a maid, So far be distant; and, good night, sweet friend: Thy love ne'er alter till thy sweet life end! LYSANDER Amen, amen, to that fair prayer, say I; And then end life when I end loyalty! Here is my bed: sleep give thee all his rest! HERMIA With half that wish the wisher's eyes be press'd! [They sleep] [Enter PUCK] PUCK Through the forest have I gone. But Athenian found I none, On whose eyes I might approve This flower's force in stirring love. Night and silence.--Who is here? Weeds of Athens he doth wear: This is he, my master said, Despised the Athenian maid; And here the maiden, sleeping sound, On the dank and dirty ground. Pretty soul! she durst not lie Near this lack-love, this kill-courtesy. Churl, upon thy eyes I throw All the power this charm doth owe. When thou wakest, let love forbid Sleep his seat on thy eyelid: So awake when I am gone; For I must now to Oberon. [Exit] [Enter DEMETRIUS and HELENA, running] HELENA Stay, though thou kill me, sweet Demetrius. DEMETRIUS I charge thee, hence, and do not haunt me thus. HELENA O, wilt thou darkling leave me? do not so. DEMETRIUS Stay, on thy peril: I alone will go. [Exit] HELENA O, I am out of breath in this fond chase! The more my prayer, the lesser is my grace. Happy is Hermia, wheresoe'er she lies; For she hath blessed and attractive eyes. How came her eyes so bright? Not with salt tears: If so, my eyes are oftener wash'd than hers. No, no, I am as ugly as a bear; For beasts that meet me run away for fear: Therefore no marvel though Demetrius Do, as a monster fly my presence thus. What wicked and dissembling glass of mine Made me compare with Hermia's sphery eyne? But who is here? Lysander! on the ground! Dead? or asleep? I see no blood, no wound. Lysander if you live, good sir, awake. LYSANDER [Awaking] And run through fire I will for thy sweet sake. Transparent Helena! Nature shows art, That through thy bosom makes me see thy heart. Where is Demetrius? O, how fit a word Is that vile name to perish on my sword! HELENA Do not say so, Lysander; say not so What though he love your Hermia? Lord, what though? Yet Hermia still loves you: then be content. LYSANDER Content with Hermia! No; I do repent The tedious minutes I with her have spent. Not Hermia but Helena I love: Who will not change a raven for a dove? The will of man is by his reason sway'd; And reason says you are the worthier maid. Things growing are not ripe until their season So I, being young, till now ripe not to reason; And touching now the point of human skill, Reason becomes the marshal to my will And leads me to your eyes, where I o'erlook Love's stories written in love's richest book. HELENA Wherefore was I to this keen mockery born? When at your hands did I deserve this scorn? Is't not enough, is't not enough, young man, That I did never, no, nor never can, Deserve a sweet look from Demetrius' eye, But you must flout my insufficiency? Good troth, you do me wrong, good sooth, you do, In such disdainful manner me to woo. But fare you well: perforce I must confess I thought you lord of more true gentleness. O, that a lady, of one man refused. Should of another therefore be abused! [Exit] LYSANDER She sees not Hermia. Hermia, sleep thou there: And never mayst thou come Lysander near! For as a surfeit of the sweetest things The deepest loathing to the stomach brings, Or as tie heresies that men do leave Are hated most of those they did deceive, So thou, my surfeit and my heresy, Of all be hated, but the most of me! And, all my powers, address your love and might To honour Helen and to be her knight! [Exit] HERMIA [Awaking] Help me, Lysander, help me! do thy best To pluck this crawling serpent from my breast! Ay me, for pity! what a dream was here! Lysander, look how I do quake with fear: Methought a serpent eat my heart away, And you sat smiling at his cruel pray. Lysander! what, removed? Lysander! lord! What, out of hearing? gone? no sound, no word? Alack, where are you speak, an if you hear; Speak, of all loves! I swoon almost with fear. No? then I well perceive you all not nigh Either death or you I'll find immediately. [Exit] A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM ACT III SCENE I The wood. TITANIA lying asleep. [Enter QUINCE, SNUG, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING] BOTTOM Are we all met? QUINCE Pat, pat; and here's a marvellous convenient place for our rehearsal. This green plot shall be our stage, this hawthorn-brake our tiring-house; and we will do it in action as we will do it before the duke. BOTTOM Peter Quince,-- QUINCE What sayest thou, bully Bottom? BOTTOM There are things in this comedy of Pyramus and Thisby that will never please. First, Pyramus must draw a sword to kill himself; which the ladies cannot abide. How answer you that? SNOUT By'r lakin, a parlous fear. STARVELING I believe we must leave the killing out, when all is done. BOTTOM Not a whit: I have a device to make all well. Write me a prologue; and let the prologue seem to say, we will do no harm with our swords, and that Pyramus is not killed indeed; and, for the more better assurance, tell them that I, Pyramus, am not Pyramus, but Bottom the weaver: this will put them out of fear. QUINCE Well, we will have such a prologue; and it shall be written in eight and six. BOTTOM No, make it two more; let it be written in eight and eight. SNOUT Will not the ladies be afeard of the lion? STARVELING I fear it, I promise you. BOTTOM Masters, you ought to consider with yourselves: to bring in--God shield us!--a lion among ladies, is a most dreadful thing; for there is not a more fearful wild-fowl than your lion living; and we ought to look to 't. SNOUT Therefore another prologue must tell he is not a lion. BOTTOM Nay, you must name his name, and half his face must be seen through the lion's neck: and he himself must speak through, saying thus, or to the same defect,--'Ladies,'--or 'Fair-ladies--I would wish You,'--or 'I would request you,'--or 'I would entreat you,--not to fear, not to tremble: my life for yours. If you think I come hither as a lion, it were pity of my life: no I am no such thing; I am a man as other men are;' and there indeed let him name his name, and tell them plainly he is Snug the joiner. QUINCE Well it shall be so. But there is two hard things; that is, to bring the moonlight into a chamber; for, you know, Pyramus and Thisby meet by moonlight. SNOUT Doth the moon shine that night we play our play? BOTTOM A calendar, a calendar! look in the almanac; find out moonshine, find out moonshine. QUINCE Yes, it doth shine that night. BOTTOM Why, then may you leave a casement of the great chamber window, where we play, open, and the moon may shine in at the casement. QUINCE Ay; or else one must come in with a bush of thorns and a lanthorn, and say he comes to disfigure, or to present, the person of Moonshine. Then, there is another thing: we must have a wall in the great chamber; for Pyramus and Thisby says the story, did talk through the chink of a wall. SNOUT You can never bring in a wall. What say you, Bottom? BOTTOM Some man or other must present Wall: and let him have some plaster, or some loam, or some rough-cast about him, to signify wall; and let him hold his fingers thus, and through that cranny shall Pyramus and Thisby whisper. QUINCE If that may be, then all is well. Come, sit down, every mother's son, and rehearse your parts. Pyramus, you begin: when you have spoken your speech, enter into that brake: and so every one according to his cue. [Enter PUCK behind] PUCK What hempen home-spuns have we swaggering here, So near the cradle of the fairy queen? What, a play toward! I'll be an auditor; An actor too, perhaps, if I see cause. QUINCE Speak, Pyramus. Thisby, stand forth. BOTTOM Thisby, the flowers of odious savours sweet,-- QUINCE Odours, odours. BOTTOM --odours savours sweet: So hath thy breath, my dearest Thisby dear. But hark, a voice! stay thou but here awhile, And by and by I will to thee appear. [Exit] PUCK A stranger Pyramus than e'er played here. [Exit] FLUTE Must I speak now? QUINCE Ay, marry, must you; for you must understand he goes but to see a noise that he heard, and is to come again. FLUTE Most radiant Pyramus, most lily-white of hue, Of colour like the red rose on triumphant brier, Most brisky juvenal and eke most lovely Jew, As true as truest horse that yet would never tire, I'll meet thee, Pyramus, at Ninny's tomb. QUINCE 'Ninus' tomb,' man: why, you must not speak that yet; that you answer to Pyramus: you speak all your part at once, cues and all Pyramus enter: your cue is past; it is, 'never tire.' FLUTE O,--As true as truest horse, that yet would never tire. [Re-enter PUCK, and BOTTOM with an ass's head] BOTTOM If I were fair, Thisby, I were only thine. QUINCE O monstrous! O strange! we are haunted. Pray, masters! fly, masters! Help! [Exeunt QUINCE, SNUG, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING] PUCK I'll follow you, I'll lead you about a round, Through bog, through bush, through brake, through brier: Sometime a horse I'll be, sometime a hound, A hog, a headless bear, sometime a fire; And neigh, and bark, and grunt, and roar, and burn, Like horse, hound, hog, bear, fire, at every turn. [Exit] BOTTOM Why do they run away? this is a knavery of them to make me afeard. [Re-enter SNOUT] SNOUT O Bottom, thou art changed! what do I see on thee? BOTTOM What do you see? you see an asshead of your own, do you? [Exit SNOUT] [Re-enter QUINCE] QUINCE Bless thee, Bottom! bless thee! thou art translated. [Exit] BOTTOM I see their knavery: this is to make an ass of me; to fright me, if they could. But I will not stir from this place, do what they can: I will walk up and down here, and I will sing, that they shall hear I am not afraid. [Sings] The ousel cock so black of hue, With orange-tawny bill, The throstle with his note so true, The wren with little quill,-- TITANIA [Awaking] What angel wakes me from my flowery bed? BOTTOM [Sings] The finch, the sparrow and the lark, The plain-song cuckoo gray, Whose note full many a man doth mark, And dares not answer nay;-- for, indeed, who would set his wit to so foolish a bird? who would give a bird the lie, though he cry 'cuckoo' never so? TITANIA I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again: Mine ear is much enamour'd of thy note; So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape; And thy fair virtue's force perforce doth move me On the first view to say, to swear, I love thee. BOTTOM Methinks, mistress, you should have little reason for that: and yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together now-a-days; the more the pity that some honest neighbours will not make them friends. Nay, I can gleek upon occasion. TITANIA Thou art as wise as thou art beautiful. BOTTOM Not so, neither: but if I had wit enough to get out of this wood, I have enough to serve mine own turn. TITANIA Out of this wood do not desire to go: Thou shalt remain here, whether thou wilt or no. I am a spirit of no common rate; The summer still doth tend upon my state; And I do love thee: therefore, go with me; I'll give thee fairies to attend on thee, And they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep, And sing while thou on pressed flowers dost sleep; And I will purge thy mortal grossness so That thou shalt like an airy spirit go. Peaseblossom! Cobweb! Moth! and Mustardseed! [Enter PEASEBLOSSOM, COBWEB, MOTH, and MUSTARDSEED] PEASEBLOSSOM Ready. COBWEB And I. MOTH And I. MUSTARDSEED And I. ALL Where shall we go? TITANIA Be kind and courteous to this gentleman; Hop in his walks and gambol in his eyes; Feed him with apricocks and dewberries, With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries; The honey-bags steal from the humble-bees, And for night-tapers crop their waxen thighs And light them at the fiery glow-worm's eyes, To have my love to bed and to arise; And pluck the wings from Painted butterflies To fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes: Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies. PEASEBLOSSOM Hail, mortal! COBWEB Hail! MOTH Hail! MUSTARDSEED Hail! BOTTOM I cry your worship's mercy, heartily: I beseech your worship's name. COBWEB Cobweb. BOTTOM I shall desire you of more acquaintance, good Master Cobweb: if I cut my finger, I shall make bold with you. Your name, honest gentleman? PEASEBLOSSOM Peaseblossom. BOTTOM I pray you, commend me to Mistress Squash, your mother, and to Master Peascod, your father. Good Master Peaseblossom, I shall desire you of more acquaintance too. Your name, I beseech you, sir? MUSTARDSEED Mustardseed. BOTTOM Good Master Mustardseed, I know your patience well: that same cowardly, giant-like ox-beef hath devoured many a gentleman of your house: I promise you your kindred had made my eyes water ere now. I desire your more acquaintance, good Master Mustardseed. TITANIA Come, wait upon him; lead him to my bower. The moon methinks looks with a watery eye; And when she weeps, weeps every little flower, Lamenting some enforced chastity. Tie up my love's tongue bring him silently. [Exeunt] A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM ACT III SCENE II Another part of the wood. [Enter OBERON] OBERON I wonder if Titania be awaked; Then, what it was that next came in her eye, Which she must dote on in extremity. [Enter PUCK] Here comes my messenger. How now, mad spirit! What night-rule now about this haunted grove? PUCK My mistress with a monster is in love. Near to her close and consecrated bower, While she was in her dull and sleeping hour, A crew of patches, rude mechanicals, That work for bread upon Athenian stalls, Were met together to rehearse a play Intended for great Theseus' nuptial-day. The shallowest thick-skin of that barren sort, Who Pyramus presented, in their sport Forsook his scene and enter'd in a brake When I did him at this advantage take, An ass's nole I fixed on his head: Anon his Thisbe must be answered, And forth my mimic comes. When they him spy, As wild geese that the creeping fowler eye, Or russet-pated choughs, many in sort, Rising and cawing at the gun's report, Sever themselves and madly sweep the sky, So, at his sight, away his fellows fly; And, at our stamp, here o'er and o'er one falls; He murder cries and help from Athens calls. Their sense thus weak, lost with their fears thus strong, Made senseless things begin to do them wrong; For briers and thorns at their apparel snatch; Some sleeves, some hats, from yielders all things catch. I led them on in this distracted fear, And left sweet Pyramus translated there: When in that moment, so it came to pass, Titania waked and straightway loved an ass. OBERON This falls out better than I could devise. But hast thou yet latch'd the Athenian's eyes With the love-juice, as I did bid thee do? PUCK I took him sleeping,--that is finish'd too,-- And the Athenian woman by his side: That, when he waked, of force she must be eyed. [Enter HERMIA and DEMETRIUS] OBERON Stand close: this is the same Athenian. PUCK This is the woman, but not this the man. DEMETRIUS O, why rebuke you him that loves you so? Lay breath so bitter on your bitter foe. HERMIA Now I but chide; but I should use thee worse, For thou, I fear, hast given me cause to curse, If thou hast slain Lysander in his sleep, Being o'er shoes in blood, plunge in the deep, And kill me too. The sun was not so true unto the day As he to me: would he have stolen away From sleeping Hermia? I'll believe as soon This whole earth may be bored and that the moon May through the centre creep and so displease Her brother's noontide with Antipodes. It cannot be but thou hast murder'd him; So should a murderer look, so dead, so grim. DEMETRIUS So should the murder'd look, and so should I, Pierced through the heart with your stern cruelty: Yet you, the murderer, look as bright, as clear, As yonder Venus in her glimmering sphere. HERMIA What's this to my Lysander? where is he? Ah, good Demetrius, wilt thou give him me? DEMETRIUS I had rather give his carcass to my hounds. HERMIA Out, dog! out, cur! thou drivest me past the bounds Of maiden's patience. Hast thou slain him, then? Henceforth be never number'd among men! O, once tell true, tell true, even for my sake! Durst thou have look'd upon him being awake, And hast thou kill'd him sleeping? O brave touch! Could not a worm, an adder, do so much? An adder did it; for with doubler tongue Than thine, thou serpent, never adder stung. DEMETRIUS You spend your passion on a misprised mood: I am not guilty of Lysander's blood; Nor is he dead, for aught that I can tell. HERMIA I pray thee, tell me then that he is well. DEMETRIUS An if I could, what should I get therefore? HERMIA A privilege never to see me more. And from thy hated presence part I so: See me no more, whether he be dead or no. [Exit] DEMETRIUS There is no following her in this fierce vein: Here therefore for a while I will remain. So sorrow's heaviness doth heavier grow For debt that bankrupt sleep doth sorrow owe: Which now in some slight measure it will pay, If for his tender here I make some stay. [Lies down and sleeps] OBERON What hast thou done? thou hast mistaken quite And laid the love-juice on some true-love's sight: Of thy misprision must perforce ensue Some true love turn'd and not a false turn'd true. PUCK Then fate o'er-rules, that, one man holding troth, A million fail, confounding oath on oath. OBERON About the wood go swifter than the wind, And Helena of Athens look thou find: All fancy-sick she is and pale of cheer, With sighs of love, that costs the fresh blood dear: By some illusion see thou bring her here: I'll charm his eyes against she do appear. PUCK I go, I go; look how I go, Swifter than arrow from the Tartar's bow. [Exit] OBERON Flower of this purple dye, Hit with Cupid's archery, Sink in apple of his eye. When his love he doth espy, Let her shine as gloriously As the Venus of the sky. When thou wakest, if she be by, Beg of her for remedy. [Re-enter PUCK] PUCK Captain of our fairy band, Helena is here at hand; And the youth, mistook by me, Pleading for a lover's fee. Shall we their fond pageant see? Lord, what fools these mortals be! OBERON Stand aside: the noise they make Will cause Demetrius to awake. PUCK Then will two at once woo one; That must needs be sport alone; And those things do best please me That befal preposterously. [Enter LYSANDER and HELENA] LYSANDER Why should you think that I should woo in scorn? Scorn and derision never come in tears: Look, when I vow, I weep; and vows so born, In their nativity all truth appears. How can these things in me seem scorn to you, Bearing the badge of faith, to prove them true? HELENA You do advance your cunning more and more. When truth kills truth, O devilish-holy fray! These vows are Hermia's: will you give her o'er? Weigh oath with oath, and you will nothing weigh: Your vows to her and me, put in two scales, Will even weigh, and both as light as tales. LYSANDER I had no judgment when to her I swore. HELENA Nor none, in my mind, now you give her o'er. LYSANDER Demetrius loves her, and he loves not you. DEMETRIUS [Awaking] O Helena, goddess, nymph, perfect, divine! To what, my love, shall I compare thine eyne? Crystal is muddy. O, how ripe in show Thy lips, those kissing cherries, tempting grow! That pure congealed white, high Taurus snow, Fann'd with the eastern wind, turns to a crow When thou hold'st up thy hand: O, let me kiss This princess of pure white, this seal of bliss! HELENA O spite! O hell! I see you all are bent To set against me for your merriment: If you we re civil and knew courtesy, You would not do me thus much injury. Can you not hate me, as I know you do, But you must join in souls to mock me too? If you were men, as men you are in show, You would not use a gentle lady so; To vow, and swear, and superpraise my parts, When I am sure you hate me with your hearts. You both are rivals, and love Hermia; And now both rivals, to mock Helena: A trim exploit, a manly enterprise, To conjure tears up in a poor maid's eyes With your derision! none of noble sort Would so offend a virgin, and extort A poor soul's patience, all to make you sport. LYSANDER You are unkind, Demetrius; be not so; For you love Hermia; this you know I know: And here, with all good will, with all my heart, In Hermia's love I yield you up my part; And yours of Helena to me bequeath, Whom I do love and will do till my death. HELENA Never did mockers waste more idle breath. DEMETRIUS Lysander, keep thy Hermia; I will none: If e'er I loved her, all that love is gone. My heart to her but as guest-wise sojourn'd, And now to Helen is it home return'd, There to remain. LYSANDER Helen, it is not so. DEMETRIUS Disparage not the faith thou dost not know, Lest, to thy peril, thou aby it dear. Look, where thy love comes; yonder is thy dear. [Re-enter HERMIA] HERMIA Dark night, that from the eye his function takes, The ear more quick of apprehension makes; Wherein it doth impair the seeing sense, It pays the hearing double recompense. Thou art not by mine eye, Lysander, found; Mine ear, I thank it, brought me to thy sound But why unkindly didst thou leave me so? LYSANDER Why should he stay, whom love doth press to go? HERMIA What love could press Lysander from my side? LYSANDER Lysander's love, that would not let him bide, Fair Helena, who more engilds the night Than all you fiery oes and eyes of light. Why seek'st thou me? could not this make thee know, The hate I bear thee made me leave thee so? HERMIA You speak not as you think: it cannot be. HELENA Lo, she is one of this confederacy! Now I perceive they have conjoin'd all three To fashion this false sport, in spite of me. Injurious Hermia! most ungrateful maid! Have you conspired, have you with these contrived To bait me with this foul derision? Is all the counsel that we two have shared, The sisters' vows, the hours that we have spent, When we have chid the hasty-footed time For parting us,--O, is it all forgot? All school-days' friendship, childhood innocence? We, Hermia, like two artificial gods, Have with our needles created both one flower, Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion, Both warbling of one song, both in one key, As if our hands, our sides, voices and minds, Had been incorporate. So we grow together, Like to a double cherry, seeming parted, But yet an union in partition; Two lovely berries moulded on one stem; So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart; Two of the first, like coats in heraldry, Due but to one and crowned with one crest. And will you rent our ancient love asunder, To join with men in scorning your poor friend? It is not friendly, 'tis not maidenly: Our sex, as well as I, may chide you for it, Though I alone do feel the injury. HERMIA I am amazed at your passionate words. I scorn you not: it seems that you scorn me. HELENA Have you not set Lysander, as in scorn, To follow me and praise my eyes and face? And made your other love, Demetrius, Who even but now did spurn me with his foot, To call me goddess, nymph, divine and rare, Precious, celestial? Wherefore speaks he this To her he hates? and wherefore doth Lysander Deny your love, so rich within his soul, And tender me, forsooth, affection, But by your setting on, by your consent? What thought I be not so in grace as you, So hung upon with love, so fortunate, But miserable most, to love unloved? This you should pity rather than despise. HERNIA I understand not what you mean by this. HELENA Ay, do, persever, counterfeit sad looks, Make mouths upon me when I turn my back; Wink each at other; hold the sweet jest up: This sport, well carried, shall be chronicled. If you have any pity, grace, or manners, You would not make me such an argument. But fare ye well: 'tis partly my own fault; Which death or absence soon shall remedy. LYSANDER Stay, gentle Helena; hear my excuse: My love, my life my soul, fair Helena! HELENA O excellent! HERMIA Sweet, do not scorn her so. DEMETRIUS If she cannot entreat, I can compel. LYSANDER Thou canst compel no more than she entreat: Thy threats have no more strength than her weak prayers. Helen, I love thee; by my life, I do: I swear by that which I will lose for thee, To prove him false that says I love thee not. DEMETRIUS I say I love thee more than he can do. LYSANDER If thou say so, withdraw, and prove it too. DEMETRIUS Quick, come! HERMIA Lysander, whereto tends all this? LYSANDER Away, you Ethiope! DEMETRIUS No, no; he'll [ ] Seem to break loose; take on as you would follow, But yet come not: you are a tame man, go! LYSANDER Hang off, thou cat, thou burr! vile thing, let loose, Or I will shake thee from me like a serpent! HERMIA Why are you grown so rude? what change is this? Sweet love,-- LYSANDER Thy love! out, tawny Tartar, out! Out, loathed medicine! hated potion, hence! HERMIA Do you not jest? HELENA Yes, sooth; and so do you. LYSANDER Demetrius, I will keep my word with thee. DEMETRIUS I would I had your bond, for I perceive A weak bond holds you: I'll not trust your word. LYSANDER What, should I hurt her, strike her, kill her dead? Although I hate her, I'll not harm her so. HERMIA What, can you do me greater harm than hate? Hate me! wherefore? O me! what news, my love! Am not I Hermia? are not you Lysander? I am as fair now as I was erewhile. Since night you loved me; yet since night you left me: Why, then you left me--O, the gods forbid!-- In earnest, shall I say? LYSANDER Ay, by my life; And never did desire to see thee more. Therefore be out of hope, of question, of doubt; Be certain, nothing truer; 'tis no jest That I do hate thee and love Helena. HERMIA O me! you juggler! you canker-blossom! You thief of love! what, have you come by night And stolen my love's heart from him? HELENA Fine, i'faith! Have you no modesty, no maiden shame, No touch of bashfulness? What, will you tear Impatient answers from my gentle tongue? Fie, fie! you counterfeit, you puppet, you! HERMIA Puppet? why so? ay, that way goes the game. Now I perceive that she hath made compare Between our statures; she hath urged her height; And with her personage, her tall personage, Her height, forsooth, she hath prevail'd with him. And are you grown so high in his esteem; Because I am so dwarfish and so low? How low am I, thou painted maypole? speak; How low am I? I am not yet so low But that my nails can reach unto thine eyes. HELENA I pray you, though you mock me, gentlemen, Let her not hurt me: I was never curst; I have no gift at all in shrewishness; I am a right maid for my cowardice: Let her not strike me. You perhaps may think, Because she is something lower than myself, That I can match her. HERMIA Lower! hark, again. HELENA Good Hermia, do not be so bitter with me. I evermore did love you, Hermia, Did ever keep your counsels, never wrong'd you; Save that, in love unto Demetrius, I told him of your stealth unto this wood. He follow'd you; for love I follow'd him; But he hath chid me hence and threaten'd me To strike me, spurn me, nay, to kill me too: And now, so you will let me quiet go, To Athens will I bear my folly back And follow you no further: let me go: You see how simple and how fond I am. HERMIA Why, get you gone: who is't that hinders you? HELENA A foolish heart, that I leave here behind. HERMIA What, with Lysander? HELENA With Demetrius. LYSANDER Be not afraid; she shall not harm thee, Helena. DEMETRIUS No, sir, she shall not, though you take her part. HELENA O, when she's angry, she is keen and shrewd! She was a vixen when she went to school; And though she be but little, she is fierce. HERMIA 'Little' again! nothing but 'low' and 'little'! Why will you suffer her to flout me thus? Let me come to her. LYSANDER Get you gone, you dwarf; You minimus, of hindering knot-grass made; You bead, you acorn. DEMETRIUS You are too officious In her behalf that scorns your services. Let her alone: speak not of Helena; Take not her part; for, if thou dost intend Never so little show of love to her, Thou shalt aby it. LYSANDER Now she holds me not; Now follow, if thou darest, to try whose right, Of thine or mine, is most in Helena. DEMETRIUS Follow! nay, I'll go with thee, cheek by jole. [Exeunt LYSANDER and DEMETRIUS] HERMIA You, mistress, all this coil is 'long of you: Nay, go not back. HELENA I will not trust you, I, Nor longer stay in your curst company. Your hands than mine are quicker for a fray, My legs are longer though, to run away. [Exit] HERMIA I am amazed, and know not what to say. [Exit] OBERON This is thy negligence: still thou mistakest, Or else committ'st thy knaveries wilfully. PUCK Believe me, king of shadows, I mistook. Did not you tell me I should know the man By the Athenian garment be had on? And so far blameless proves my enterprise, That I have 'nointed an Athenian's eyes; And so far am I glad it so did sort As this their jangling I esteem a sport. OBERON Thou see'st these lovers seek a place to fight: Hie therefore, Robin, overcast the night; The starry welkin cover thou anon With drooping fog as black as Acheron, And lead these testy rivals so astray As one come not within another's way. Like to Lysander sometime frame thy tongue, Then stir Demetrius up with bitter wrong; And sometime rail thou like Demetrius; And from each other look thou lead them thus, Till o'er their brows death-counterfeiting sleep With leaden legs and batty wings doth creep: Then crush this herb into Lysander's eye; Whose liquor hath this virtuous property, To take from thence all error with his might, And make his eyeballs roll with wonted sight. When they next wake, all this derision Shall seem a dream and fruitless vision, And back to Athens shall the lovers wend, With league whose date till death shall never end. Whiles I in this affair do thee employ, I'll to my queen and beg her Indian boy; And then I will her charmed eye release From monster's view, and all things shall be peace. PUCK My fairy lord, this must be done with haste, For night's swift dragons cut the clouds full fast, And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger; At whose approach, ghosts, wandering here and there, Troop home to churchyards: damned spirits all, That in crossways and floods have burial, Already to their wormy beds are gone; For fear lest day should look their shames upon, They willfully themselves exile from light And must for aye consort with black-brow'd night. OBERON But we are spirits of another sort: I with the morning's love have oft made sport, And, like a forester, the groves may tread, Even till the eastern gate, all fiery-red, Opening on Neptune with fair blessed beams, Turns into yellow gold his salt green streams. But, notwithstanding, haste; make no delay: We may effect this business yet ere day. [Exit] PUCK Up and down, up and down, I will lead them up and down: I am fear'd in field and town: Goblin, lead them up and down. Here comes one. [Re-enter LYSANDER] LYSANDER Where art thou, proud Demetrius? speak thou now. PUCK Here, villain; drawn and ready. Where art thou? LYSANDER I will be with thee straight. PUCK Follow me, then, To plainer ground. [Exit LYSANDER, as following the voice] [Re-enter DEMETRIUS] DEMETRIUS Lysander! speak again: Thou runaway, thou coward, art thou fled? Speak! In some bush? Where dost thou hide thy head? PUCK Thou coward, art thou bragging to the stars, Telling the bushes that thou look'st for wars, And wilt not come? Come, recreant; come, thou child; I'll whip thee with a rod: he is defiled That draws a sword on thee. DEMETRIUS Yea, art thou there? PUCK Follow my voice: we'll try no manhood here. [Exeunt] [Re-enter LYSANDER] LYSANDER He goes before me and still dares me on: When I come where he calls, then he is gone. The villain is much lighter-heel'd than I: I follow'd fast, but faster he did fly; That fallen am I in dark uneven way, And here will rest me. [Lies down] Come, thou gentle day! For if but once thou show me thy grey light, I'll find Demetrius and revenge this spite. [Sleeps] [Re-enter PUCK and DEMETRIUS] PUCK Ho, ho, ho! Coward, why comest thou not? DEMETRIUS Abide me, if thou darest; for well I wot Thou runn'st before me, shifting every place, And darest not stand, nor look me in the face. Where art thou now? PUCK Come hither: I am here. DEMETRIUS Nay, then, thou mock'st me. Thou shalt buy this dear, If ever I thy face by daylight see: Now, go thy way. Faintness constraineth me To measure out my length on this cold bed. By day's approach look to be visited. [Lies down and sleeps] [Re-enter HELENA] HELENA O weary night, O long and tedious night, Abate thy hour! Shine comforts from the east, That I may back to Athens by daylight, From these that my poor company detest: And sleep, that sometimes shuts up sorrow's eye, Steal me awhile from mine own company. [Lies down and sleeps] PUCK Yet but three? Come one more; Two of both kinds make up four. Here she comes, curst and sad: Cupid is a knavish lad, Thus to make poor females mad. [Re-enter HERMIA] HERMIA Never so weary, never so in woe, Bedabbled with the dew and torn with briers, I can no further crawl, no further go; My legs can keep no pace with my desires. Here will I rest me till the break of day. Heavens shield Lysander, if they mean a fray! [Lies down and sleeps] PUCK On the ground Sleep sound: I'll apply To your eye, Gentle lover, remedy. [Squeezing the juice on LYSANDER's eyes] When thou wakest, Thou takest True delight In the sight Of thy former lady's eye: And the country proverb known, That every man should take his own, In your waking shall be shown: Jack shall have Jill; Nought shall go ill; The man shall have his mare again, and all shall be well. [Exit] A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM ACT IV SCENE I The same. LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, HELENA, and HERMIA lying asleep. [Enter TITANIA and BOTTOM; PEASEBLOSSOM, COBWEB, MOTH, MUSTARDSEED, and other Fairies attending; OBERON behind unseen] TITANIA Come, sit thee down upon this flowery bed, While I thy amiable cheeks do coy, And stick musk-roses in thy sleek smooth head, And kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy. BOTTOM Where's Peaseblossom? PEASEBLOSSOM Ready. BOTTOM Scratch my head Peaseblossom. Where's Mounsieur Cobweb? COBWEB Ready. BOTTOM Mounsieur Cobweb, good mounsieur, get you your weapons in your hand, and kill me a red-hipped humble-bee on the top of a thistle; and, good mounsieur, bring me the honey-bag. Do not fret yourself too much in the action, mounsieur; and, good mounsieur, have a care the honey-bag break not; I would be loath to have you overflown with a honey-bag, signior. Where's Mounsieur Mustardseed? MUSTARDSEED Ready. BOTTOM Give me your neaf, Mounsieur Mustardseed. Pray you, leave your courtesy, good mounsieur. MUSTARDSEED What's your Will? BOTTOM Nothing, good mounsieur, but to help Cavalery Cobweb to scratch. I must to the barber's, monsieur; for methinks I am marvellous hairy about the face; and I am such a tender ass, if my hair do but tickle me, I must scratch. TITANIA What, wilt thou hear some music, my sweet love? BOTTOM I have a reasonable good ear in music. Let's have the tongs and the bones. TITANIA Or say, sweet love, what thou desirest to eat. BOTTOM Truly, a peck of provender: I could munch your good dry oats. Methinks I have a great desire to a bottle of hay: good hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow. TITANIA I have a venturous fairy that shall seek The squirrel's hoard, and fetch thee new nuts. BOTTOM I had rather have a handful or two of dried peas. But, I pray you, let none of your people stir me: I have an exposition of sleep come upon me. TITANIA Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms. Fairies, begone, and be all ways away. [Exeunt fairies] So doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle Gently entwist; the female ivy so Enrings the barky fingers of the elm. O, how I love thee! how I dote on thee! [They sleep] [Enter PUCK] OBERON [Advancing] Welcome, good Robin. See'st thou this sweet sight? Her dotage now I do begin to pity: For, meeting her of late behind the wood, Seeking sweet favours from this hateful fool, I did upbraid her and fall out with her; For she his hairy temples then had rounded With a coronet of fresh and fragrant flowers; And that same dew, which sometime on the buds Was wont to swell like round and orient pearls, Stood now within the pretty flowerets' eyes Like tears that did their own disgrace bewail. When I had at my pleasure taunted her And she in mild terms begg'd my patience, I then did ask of her her changeling child; Which straight she gave me, and her fairy sent To bear him to my bower in fairy land. And now I have the boy, I will undo This hateful imperfection of her eyes: And, gentle Puck, take this transformed scalp From off the head of this Athenian swain; That, he awaking when the other do, May all to Athens back again repair And think no more of this night's accidents But as the fierce vexation of a dream. But first I will release the fairy queen. Be as thou wast wont to be; See as thou wast wont to see: Dian's bud o'er Cupid's flower Hath such force and blessed power. Now, my Titania; wake you, my sweet queen. TITANIA My Oberon! what visions have I seen! Methought I was enamour'd of an ass. OBERON There lies your love. TITANIA How came these things to pass? O, how mine eyes do loathe his visage now! OBERON Silence awhile. Robin, take off this head. Titania, music call; and strike more dead Than common sleep of all these five the sense. TITANIA Music, ho! music, such as charmeth sleep! [Music, still] PUCK Now, when thou wakest, with thine own fool's eyes peep. OBERON Sound, music! Come, my queen, take hands with me, And rock the ground whereon these sleepers be. Now thou and I are new in amity, And will to-morrow midnight solemnly Dance in Duke Theseus' house triumphantly, And bless it to all fair prosperity: There shall the pairs of faithful lovers be Wedded, with Theseus, all in jollity. PUCK Fairy king, attend, and mark: I do hear the morning lark. OBERON Then, my queen, in silence sad, Trip we after the night's shade: We the globe can compass soon, Swifter than the wandering moon. TITANIA Come, my lord, and in our flight Tell me how it came this night That I sleeping here was found With these mortals on the ground. [Exeunt] [Horns winded within] [Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, EGEUS, and train] THESEUS Go, one of you, find out the forester; For now our observation is perform'd; And since we have the vaward of the day, My love shall hear the music of my hounds. Uncouple in the western valley; let them go: Dispatch, I say, and find the forester. [Exit an Attendant] We will, fair queen, up to the mountain's top, And mark the musical confusion Of hounds and echo in conjunction. HIPPOLYTA I was with Hercules and Cadmus once, When in a wood of Crete they bay'd the bear With hounds of Sparta: never did I hear Such gallant chiding: for, besides the groves, The skies, the fountains, every region near Seem'd all one mutual cry: I never heard So musical a discord, such sweet thunder. THESEUS My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind, So flew'd, so sanded, and their heads are hung With ears that sweep away the morning dew; Crook-knee'd, and dew-lapp'd like Thessalian bulls; Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouth like bells, Each under each. A cry more tuneable Was never holla'd to, nor cheer'd with horn, In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly: Judge when you hear. But, soft! what nymphs are these? EGEUS My lord, this is my daughter here asleep; And this, Lysander; this Demetrius is; This Helena, old Nedar's Helena: I wonder of their being here together. THESEUS No doubt they rose up early to observe The rite of May, and hearing our intent, Came here in grace our solemnity. But speak, Egeus; is not this the day That Hermia should give answer of her choice? EGEUS It is, my lord. THESEUS Go, bid the huntsmen wake them with their horns. [Horns and shout within. LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, HELENA, and HERMIA wake and start up] Good morrow, friends. Saint Valentine is past: Begin these wood-birds but to couple now? LYSANDER Pardon, my lord. THESEUS I pray you all, stand up. I know you two are rival enemies: How comes this gentle concord in the world, That hatred is so far from jealousy, To sleep by hate, and fear no enmity? LYSANDER My lord, I shall reply amazedly, Half sleep, half waking: but as yet, I swear, I cannot truly say how I came here; But, as I think,--for truly would I speak, And now do I bethink me, so it is,-- I came with Hermia hither: our intent Was to be gone from Athens, where we might, Without the peril of the Athenian law. EGEUS Enough, enough, my lord; you have enough: I beg the law, the law, upon his head. They would have stolen away; they would, Demetrius, Thereby to have defeated you and me, You of your wife and me of my consent, Of my consent that she should be your wife. DEMETRIUS My lord, fair Helen told me of their stealth, Of this their purpose hither to this wood; And I in fury hither follow'd them, Fair Helena in fancy following me. But, my good lord, I wot not by what power,-- But by some power it is,--my love to Hermia, Melted as the snow, seems to me now As the remembrance of an idle gaud Which in my childhood I did dote upon; And all the faith, the virtue of my heart, The object and the pleasure of mine eye, Is only Helena. To her, my lord, Was I betroth'd ere I saw Hermia: But, like in sickness, did I loathe this food; But, as in health, come to my natural taste, Now I do wish it, love it, long for it, And will for evermore be true to it. THESEUS Fair lovers, you are fortunately met: Of this discourse we more will hear anon. Egeus, I will overbear your will; For in the temple by and by with us These couples shall eternally be knit: And, for the morning now is something worn, Our purposed hunting shall be set aside. Away with us to Athens; three and three, We'll hold a feast in great solemnity. Come, Hippolyta. [Exeunt THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, EGEUS, and train] DEMETRIUS These things seem small and undistinguishable, HERMIA Methinks I see these things with parted eye, When every thing seems double. HELENA So methinks: And I have found Demetrius like a jewel, Mine own, and not mine own. DEMETRIUS Are you sure That we are awake? It seems to me That yet we sleep, we dream. Do not you think The duke was here, and bid us follow him? HERMIA Yea; and my father. HELENA And Hippolyta. LYSANDER And he did bid us follow to the temple. DEMETRIUS Why, then, we are awake: let's follow him And by the way let us recount our dreams. [Exeunt] BOTTOM [Awaking] When my cue comes, call me, and I will answer: my next is, 'Most fair Pyramus.' Heigh-ho! Peter Quince! Flute, the bellows-mender! Snout, the tinker! Starveling! God's my life, stolen hence, and left me asleep! I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was: man is but an ass, if he go about to expound this dream. Methought I was--there is no man can tell what. Methought I was,--and methought I had,--but man is but a patched fool, if he will offer to say what methought I had. The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was. I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream: it shall be called Bottom's Dream, because it hath no bottom; and I will sing it in the latter end of a play, before the duke: peradventure, to make it the more gracious, I shall sing it at her death. [Exit] A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM ACT IV SCENE II Athens. QUINCE'S house. [Enter QUINCE, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING] QUINCE Have you sent to Bottom's house? is he come home yet? STARVELING He cannot be heard of. Out of doubt he is transported. FLUTE If he come not, then the play is marred: it goes not forward, doth it? QUINCE It is not possible: you have not a man in all Athens able to discharge Pyramus but he. FLUTE No, he hath simply the best wit of any handicraft man in Athens. QUINCE Yea and the best person too; and he is a very paramour for a sweet voice. FLUTE You must say 'paragon:' a paramour is, God bless us, a thing of naught. [Enter SNUG] SNUG Masters, the duke is coming from the temple, and there is two or three lords and ladies more married: if our sport had gone forward, we had all been made men. FLUTE O sweet bully Bottom! Thus hath he lost sixpence a day during his life; he could not have 'scaped sixpence a day: an the duke had not given him sixpence a day for playing Pyramus, I'll be hanged; he would have deserved it: sixpence a day in Pyramus, or nothing. [Enter BOTTOM] BOTTOM Where are these lads? where are these hearts? QUINCE Bottom! O most courageous day! O most happy hour! BOTTOM Masters, I am to discourse wonders: but ask me not what; for if I tell you, I am no true Athenian. I will tell you every thing, right as it fell out. QUINCE Let us hear, sweet Bottom. BOTTOM Not a word of me. All that I will tell you is, that the duke hath dined. Get your apparel together, good strings to your beards, new ribbons to your pumps; meet presently at the palace; every man look o'er his part; for the short and the long is, our play is preferred. In any case, let Thisby have clean linen; and let not him that plays the lion pair his nails, for they shall hang out for the lion's claws. And, most dear actors, eat no onions nor garlic, for we are to utter sweet breath; and I do not doubt but to hear them say, it is a sweet comedy. No more words: away! go, away! [Exeunt] A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM ACT V SCENE I Athens. The palace of THESEUS. [Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE, Lords and Attendants] HIPPOLYTA 'Tis strange my Theseus, that these lovers speak of. THESEUS More strange than true: I never may believe These antique fables, nor these fairy toys. Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend More than cool reason ever comprehends. The lunatic, the lover and the poet Are of imagination all compact: One sees more devils than vast hell can hold, That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic, Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt: The poet's eye, in fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven; And as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name. Such tricks hath strong imagination, That if it would but apprehend some joy, It comprehends some bringer of that joy; Or in the night, imagining some fear, How easy is a bush supposed a bear! HIPPOLYTA But all the story of the night told over, And all their minds transfigured so together, More witnesseth than fancy's images And grows to something of great constancy; But, howsoever, strange and admirable. THESEUS Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth. [Enter LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, HERMIA, and HELENA] Joy, gentle friends! joy and fresh days of love Accompany your hearts! LYSANDER More than to us Wait in your royal walks, your board, your bed! THESEUS Come now; what masques, what dances shall we have, To wear away this long age of three hours Between our after-supper and bed-time? Where is our usual manager of mirth? What revels are in hand? Is there no play, To ease the anguish of a torturing hour? Call Philostrate. PHILOSTRATE Here, mighty Theseus. THESEUS Say, what abridgement have you for this evening? What masque? what music? How shall we beguile The lazy time, if not with some delight? PHILOSTRATE There is a brief how many sports are ripe: Make choice of which your highness will see first. [Giving a paper] THESEUS [Reads] 'The battle with the Centaurs, to be sung By an Athenian eunuch to the harp.' We'll none of that: that have I told my love, In glory of my kinsman Hercules. [Reads] 'The riot of the tipsy Bacchanals, Tearing the Thracian singer in their rage.' That is an old device; and it was play'd When I from Thebes came last a conqueror. [Reads] 'The thrice three Muses mourning for the death Of Learning, late deceased in beggary.' That is some satire, keen and critical, Not sorting with a nuptial ceremony. [Reads] 'A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus And his love Thisbe; very tragical mirth.' Merry and tragical! tedious and brief! That is, hot ice and wondrous strange snow. How shall we find the concord of this discord? PHILOSTRATE A play there is, my lord, some ten words long, Which is as brief as I have known a play; But by ten words, my lord, it is too long, Which makes it tedious; for in all the play There is not one word apt, one player fitted: And tragical, my noble lord, it is; For Pyramus therein doth kill himself. Which, when I saw rehearsed, I must confess, Made mine eyes water; but more merry tears The passion of loud laughter never shed. THESEUS What are they that do play it? PHILOSTRATE Hard-handed men that work in Athens here, Which never labour'd in their minds till now, And now have toil'd their unbreathed memories With this same play, against your nuptial. THESEUS And we will hear it. PHILOSTRATE No, my noble lord; It is not for you: I have heard it over, And it is nothing, nothing in the world; Unless you can find sport in their intents, Extremely stretch'd and conn'd with cruel pain, To do you service. THESEUS I will hear that play; For never anything can be amiss, When simpleness and duty tender it. Go, bring them in: and take your places, ladies. [Exit PHILOSTRATE] HIPPOLYTA I love not to see wretchedness o'er charged And duty in his service perishing. THESEUS Why, gentle sweet, you shall see no such thing. HIPPOLYTA He says they can do nothing in this kind. THESEUS The kinder we, to give them thanks for nothing. Our sport shall be to take what they mistake: And what poor duty cannot do, noble respect Takes it in might, not merit. Where I have come, great clerks have purposed To greet me with premeditated welcomes; Where I have seen them shiver and look pale, Make periods in the midst of sentences, Throttle their practised accent in their fears And in conclusion dumbly have broke off, Not paying me a welcome. Trust me, sweet, Out of this silence yet I pick'd a welcome; And in the modesty of fearful duty I read as much as from the rattling tongue Of saucy and audacious eloquence. Love, therefore, and tongue-tied simplicity In least speak most, to my capacity. [Re-enter PHILOSTRATE] PHILOSTRATE So please your grace, the Prologue is address'd. THESEUS Let him approach. [Flourish of trumpets] [Enter QUINCE for the Prologue] Prologue If we offend, it is with our good will. That you should think, we come not to offend, But with good will. To show our simple skill, That is the true beginning of our end. Consider then we come but in despite. We do not come as minding to contest you, Our true intent is. All for your delight We are not here. That you should here repent you, The actors are at hand and by their show You shall know all that you are like to know. THESEUS This fellow doth not stand upon points. LYSANDER He hath rid his prologue like a rough colt; he knows not the stop. A good moral, my lord: it is not enough to speak, but to speak true. HIPPOLYTA Indeed he hath played on his prologue like a child on a recorder; a sound, but not in government. THESEUS His speech, was like a tangled chain; nothing impaired, but all disordered. Who is next? [Enter Pyramus and Thisbe, Wall, Moonshine, and Lion] Prologue Gentles, perchance you wonder at this show; But wonder on, till truth make all things plain. This man is Pyramus, if you would know; This beauteous lady Thisby is certain. This man, with lime and rough-cast, doth present Wall, that vile Wall which did these lovers sunder; And through Wall's chink, poor souls, they are content To whisper. At the which let no man wonder. This man, with lanthorn, dog, and bush of thorn, Presenteth Moonshine; for, if you will know, By moonshine did these lovers think no scorn To meet at Ninus' tomb, there, there to woo. This grisly beast, which Lion hight by name, The trusty Thisby, coming first by night, Did scare away, or rather did affright; And, as she fled, her mantle she did fall, Which Lion vile with bloody mouth did stain. Anon comes Pyramus, sweet youth and tall, And finds his trusty Thisby's mantle slain: Whereat, with blade, with bloody blameful blade, He bravely broach'd is boiling bloody breast; And Thisby, tarrying in mulberry shade, His dagger drew, and died. For all the rest, Let Lion, Moonshine, Wall, and lovers twain At large discourse, while here they do remain. [Exeunt Prologue, Thisbe, Lion, and Moonshine] THESEUS I wonder if the lion be to speak. DEMETRIUS No wonder, my lord: one lion may, when many asses do. Wall In this same interlude it doth befall That I, one Snout by name, present a wall; And such a wall, as I would have you think, That had in it a crannied hole or chink, Through which the lovers, Pyramus and Thisby, Did whisper often very secretly. This loam, this rough-cast and this stone doth show That I am that same wall; the truth is so: And this the cranny is, right and sinister, Through which the fearful lovers are to whisper. THESEUS Would you desire lime and hair to speak better? DEMETRIUS It is the wittiest partition that ever I heard discourse, my lord. [Enter Pyramus] THESEUS Pyramus draws near the wall: silence! Pyramus O grim-look'd night! O night with hue so black! O night, which ever art when day is not! O night, O night! alack, alack, alack, I fear my Thisby's promise is forgot! And thou, O wall, O sweet, O lovely wall, That stand'st between her father's ground and mine! Thou wall, O wall, O sweet and lovely wall, Show me thy chink, to blink through with mine eyne! [Wall holds up his fingers] Thanks, courteous wall: Jove shield thee well for this! But what see I? No Thisby do I see. O wicked wall, through whom I see no bliss! Cursed be thy stones for thus deceiving me! THESEUS The wall, methinks, being sensible, should curse again. Pyramus No, in truth, sir, he should not. 'Deceiving me' is Thisby's cue: she is to enter now, and I am to spy her through the wall. You shall see, it will fall pat as I told you. Yonder she comes. [Enter Thisbe] Thisbe O wall, full often hast thou heard my moans, For parting my fair Pyramus and me! My cherry lips have often kiss'd thy stones, Thy stones with lime and hair knit up in thee. Pyramus I see a voice: now will I to the chink, To spy an I can hear my Thisby's face. Thisby! Thisbe My love thou art, my love I think. Pyramus Think what thou wilt, I am thy lover's grace; And, like Limander, am I trusty still. Thisbe And I like Helen, till the Fates me kill. Pyramus Not Shafalus to Procrus was so true. Thisbe As Shafalus to Procrus, I to you. Pyramus O kiss me through the hole of this vile wall! Thisbe I kiss the wall's hole, not your lips at all. Pyramus Wilt thou at Ninny's tomb meet me straightway? Thisbe 'Tide life, 'tide death, I come without delay. [Exeunt Pyramus and Thisbe] Wall Thus have I, Wall, my part discharged so; And, being done, thus Wall away doth go. [Exit] THESEUS Now is the mural down between the two neighbours. DEMETRIUS No remedy, my lord, when walls are so wilful to hear without warning. HIPPOLYTA This is the silliest stuff that ever I heard. THESEUS The best in this kind are but shadows; and the worst are no worse, if imagination amend them. HIPPOLYTA It must be your imagination then, and not theirs. THESEUS If we imagine no worse of them than they of themselves, they may pass for excellent men. Here come two noble beasts in, a man and a lion. [Enter Lion and Moonshine] Lion You, ladies, you, whose gentle hearts do fear The smallest monstrous mouse that creeps on floor, May now perchance both quake and tremble here, When lion rough in wildest rage doth roar. Then know that I, one Snug the joiner, am A lion-fell, nor else no lion's dam; For, if I should as lion come in strife Into this place, 'twere pity on my life. THESEUS A very gentle beast, of a good conscience. DEMETRIUS The very best at a beast, my lord, that e'er I saw. LYSANDER This lion is a very fox for his valour. THESEUS True; and a goose for his discretion. DEMETRIUS Not so, my lord; for his valour cannot carry his discretion; and the fox carries the goose. THESEUS His discretion, I am sure, cannot carry his valour; for the goose carries not the fox. It is well: leave it to his discretion, and let us listen to the moon. Moonshine This lanthorn doth the horned moon present;-- DEMETRIUS He should have worn the horns on his head. THESEUS He is no crescent, and his horns are invisible within the circumference. Moonshine This lanthorn doth the horned moon present; Myself the man i' the moon do seem to be. THESEUS This is the greatest error of all the rest: the man should be put into the lanthorn. How is it else the man i' the moon? DEMETRIUS He dares not come there for the candle; for, you see, it is already in snuff. HIPPOLYTA I am aweary of this moon: would he would change! THESEUS It appears, by his small light of discretion, that he is in the wane; but yet, in courtesy, in all reason, we must stay the time. LYSANDER Proceed, Moon. Moonshine All that I have to say, is, to tell you that the lanthorn is the moon; I, the man in the moon; this thorn-bush, my thorn-bush; and this dog, my dog. DEMETRIUS Why, all these should be in the lanthorn; for all these are in the moon. But, silence! here comes Thisbe. [Enter Thisbe] Thisbe This is old Ninny's tomb. Where is my love? Lion [Roaring] Oh-- [Thisbe runs off] DEMETRIUS Well roared, Lion. THESEUS Well run, Thisbe. HIPPOLYTA Well shone, Moon. Truly, the moon shines with a good grace. [The Lion shakes Thisbe's mantle, and exit] THESEUS Well moused, Lion. LYSANDER And so the lion vanished. DEMETRIUS And then came Pyramus. [Enter Pyramus] Pyramus Sweet Moon, I thank thee for thy sunny beams; I thank thee, Moon, for shining now so bright; For, by thy gracious, golden, glittering gleams, I trust to take of truest Thisby sight. But stay, O spite! But mark, poor knight, What dreadful dole is here! Eyes, do you see? How can it be? O dainty duck! O dear! Thy mantle good, What, stain'd with blood! Approach, ye Furies fell! O Fates, come, come, Cut thread and thrum; Quail, crush, conclude, and quell! THESEUS This passion, and the death of a dear friend, would go near to make a man look sad. HIPPOLYTA Beshrew my heart, but I pity the man. Pyramus O wherefore, Nature, didst thou lions frame? Since lion vile hath here deflower'd my dear: Which is--no, no--which was the fairest dame That lived, that loved, that liked, that look'd with cheer. Come, tears, confound; Out, sword, and wound The pap of Pyramus; Ay, that left pap, Where heart doth hop: [Stabs himself] Thus die I, thus, thus, thus. Now am I dead, Now am I fled; My soul is in the sky: Tongue, lose thy light; Moon take thy flight: [Exit Moonshine] Now die, die, die, die, die. [Dies] DEMETRIUS No die, but an ace, for him; for he is but one. LYSANDER Less than an ace, man; for he is dead; he is nothing. THESEUS With the help of a surgeon he might yet recover, and prove an ass. HIPPOLYTA How chance Moonshine is gone before Thisbe comes back and finds her lover? THESEUS She will find him by starlight. Here she comes; and her passion ends the play. [Re-enter Thisbe] HIPPOLYTA Methinks she should not use a long one for such a Pyramus: I hope she will be brief. DEMETRIUS A mote will turn the balance, which Pyramus, which Thisbe, is the better; he for a man, God warrant us; she for a woman, God bless us. LYSANDER She hath spied him already with those sweet eyes. DEMETRIUS And thus she means, videlicet:-- Thisbe Asleep, my love? What, dead, my dove? O Pyramus, arise! Speak, speak. Quite dumb? Dead, dead? A tomb Must cover thy sweet eyes. These My lips, This cherry nose, These yellow cowslip cheeks, Are gone, are gone: Lovers, make moan: His eyes were green as leeks. O Sisters Three, Come, come to me, With hands as pale as milk; Lay them in gore, Since you have shore With shears his thread of silk. Tongue, not a word: Come, trusty sword; Come, blade, my breast imbrue: [Stabs herself] And, farewell, friends; Thus Thisby ends: Adieu, adieu, adieu. [Dies] THESEUS Moonshine and Lion are left to bury the dead. DEMETRIUS Ay, and Wall too. BOTTOM [Starting up] No assure you; the wall is down that parted their fathers. Will it please you to see the epilogue, or to hear a Bergomask dance between two of our company? THESEUS No epilogue, I pray you; for your play needs no excuse. Never excuse; for when the players are all dead, there needs none to be blamed. Marry, if he that writ it had played Pyramus and hanged himself in Thisbe's garter, it would have been a fine tragedy: and so it is, truly; and very notably discharged. But come, your Bergomask: let your epilogue alone. [A dance] The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve: Lovers, to bed; 'tis almost fairy time. I fear we shall out-sleep the coming morn As much as we this night have overwatch'd. This palpable-gross play hath well beguiled The heavy gait of night. Sweet friends, to bed. A fortnight hold we this solemnity, In nightly revels and new jollity. [Exeunt] [Enter PUCK] PUCK Now the hungry lion roars, And the wolf behowls the moon; Whilst the heavy ploughman snores, All with weary task fordone. Now the wasted brands do glow, Whilst the screech-owl, screeching loud, Puts the wretch that lies in woe In remembrance of a shroud. Now it is the time of night That the graves all gaping wide, Every one lets forth his sprite, In the church-way paths to glide: And we fairies, that do run By the triple Hecate's team, From the presence of the sun, Following darkness like a dream, Now are frolic: not a mouse Shall disturb this hallow'd house: I am sent with broom before, To sweep the dust behind the door. [Enter OBERON and TITANIA with their train] OBERON Through the house give gathering light, By the dead and drowsy fire: Every elf and fairy sprite Hop as light as bird from brier; And this ditty, after me, Sing, and dance it trippingly. TITANIA First, rehearse your song by rote To each word a warbling note: Hand in hand, with fairy grace, Will we sing, and bless this place. [Song and dance] OBERON Now, until the break of day, Through this house each fairy stray. To the best bride-bed will we, Which by us shall blessed be; And the issue there create Ever shall be fortunate. So shall all the couples three Ever true in loving be; And the blots of Nature's hand Shall not in their issue stand; Never mole, hare lip, nor scar, Nor mark prodigious, such as are Despised in nativity, Shall upon their children be. With this field-dew consecrate, Every fairy take his gait; And each several chamber bless, Through this palace, with sweet peace; And the owner of it blest Ever shall in safety rest. Trip away; make no stay; Meet me all by break of day. [Exeunt OBERON, TITANIA, and train] PUCK If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended, That you have but slumber'd here While these visions did appear. And this weak and idle theme, No more yielding but a dream, Gentles, do not reprehend: if you pardon, we will mend: And, as I am an honest Puck, If we have unearned luck Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue, We will make amends ere long; Else the Puck a liar call; So, good night unto you all. Give me your hands, if we be friends, And Robin shall restore amends. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING DRAMATIS PERSONAE DON PEDRO prince of Arragon. DON JOHN his bastard brother. CLAUDIO a young lord of Florence. BENEDICK a young lord of Padua. LEONATO governor of Messina. ANTONIO his brother. BALTHASAR attendant on Don Pedro. CONRADE | | followers of Don John. BORACHIO | FRIAR FRANCIS: DOGBERRY a constable. VERGES a headborough. A Sexton. A Boy. HERO daughter to Leonato. BEATRICE niece to Leonato. MARGARET | | gentlewomen attending on Hero. URSULA | Messengers, Watch, Attendants, &c. (Lord:) (Messenger:) (Watchman:) (First Watchman:) (Second Watchman:) SCENE Messina. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING ACT I SCENE I Before LEONATO'S house. [Enter LEONATO, HERO, and BEATRICE, with a Messenger] LEONATO I learn in this letter that Don Peter of Arragon comes this night to Messina. Messenger He is very near by this: he was not three leagues off when I left him. LEONATO How many gentlemen have you lost in this action? Messenger But few of any sort, and none of name. LEONATO A victory is twice itself when the achiever brings home full numbers. I find here that Don Peter hath bestowed much honour on a young Florentine called Claudio. Messenger Much deserved on his part and equally remembered by Don Pedro: he hath borne himself beyond the promise of his age, doing, in the figure of a lamb, the feats of a lion: he hath indeed better bettered expectation than you must expect of me to tell you how. LEONATO He hath an uncle here in Messina will be very much glad of it. Messenger I have already delivered him letters, and there appears much joy in him; even so much that joy could not show itself modest enough without a badge of bitterness. LEONATO Did he break out into tears? Messenger In great measure. LEONATO A kind overflow of kindness: there are no faces truer than those that are so washed. How much better is it to weep at joy than to joy at weeping! BEATRICE I pray you, is Signior Mountanto returned from the wars or no? Messenger I know none of that name, lady: there was none such in the army of any sort. LEONATO What is he that you ask for, niece? HERO My cousin means Signior Benedick of Padua. Messenger O, he's returned; and as pleasant as ever he was. BEATRICE He set up his bills here in Messina and challenged Cupid at the flight; and my uncle's fool, reading the challenge, subscribed for Cupid, and challenged him at the bird-bolt. I pray you, how many hath he killed and eaten in these wars? But how many hath he killed? for indeed I promised to eat all of his killing. LEONATO Faith, niece, you tax Signior Benedick too much; but he'll be meet with you, I doubt it not. Messenger He hath done good service, lady, in these wars. BEATRICE You had musty victual, and he hath holp to eat it: he is a very valiant trencherman; he hath an excellent stomach. Messenger And a good soldier too, lady. BEATRICE And a good soldier to a lady: but what is he to a lord? Messenger A lord to a lord, a man to a man; stuffed with all honourable virtues. BEATRICE It is so, indeed; he is no less than a stuffed man: but for the stuffing,--well, we are all mortal. LEONATO You must not, sir, mistake my niece. There is a kind of merry war betwixt Signior Benedick and her: they never meet but there's a skirmish of wit between them. BEATRICE Alas! he gets nothing by that. In our last conflict four of his five wits went halting off, and now is the whole man governed with one: so that if he have wit enough to keep himself warm, let him bear it for a difference between himself and his horse; for it is all the wealth that he hath left, to be known a reasonable creature. Who is his companion now? He hath every month a new sworn brother. Messenger Is't possible? BEATRICE Very easily possible: he wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat; it ever changes with the next block. Messenger I see, lady, the gentleman is not in your books. BEATRICE No; an he were, I would burn my study. But, I pray you, who is his companion? Is there no young squarer now that will make a voyage with him to the devil? Messenger He is most in the company of the right noble Claudio. BEATRICE O Lord, he will hang upon him like a disease: he is sooner caught than the pestilence, and the taker runs presently mad. God help the noble Claudio! if he have caught the Benedick, it will cost him a thousand pound ere a' be cured. Messenger I will hold friends with you, lady. BEATRICE Do, good friend. LEONATO You will never run mad, niece. BEATRICE No, not till a hot January. Messenger Don Pedro is approached. [Enter DON PEDRO, DON JOHN, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK, and BALTHASAR] DON PEDRO Good Signior Leonato, you are come to meet your trouble: the fashion of the world is to avoid cost, and you encounter it. LEONATO Never came trouble to my house in the likeness of your grace: for trouble being gone, comfort should remain; but when you depart from me, sorrow abides and happiness takes his leave. DON PEDRO You embrace your charge too willingly. I think this is your daughter. LEONATO Her mother hath many times told me so. BENEDICK Were you in doubt, sir, that you asked her? LEONATO Signior Benedick, no; for then were you a child. DON PEDRO You have it full, Benedick: we may guess by this what you are, being a man. Truly, the lady fathers herself. Be happy, lady; for you are like an honourable father. BENEDICK If Signior Leonato be her father, she would not have his head on her shoulders for all Messina, as like him as she is. BEATRICE I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior Benedick: nobody marks you. BENEDICK What, my dear Lady Disdain! are you yet living? BEATRICE Is it possible disdain should die while she hath such meet food to feed it as Signior Benedick? Courtesy itself must convert to disdain, if you come in her presence. BENEDICK Then is courtesy a turncoat. But it is certain I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted: and I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart; for, truly, I love none. BEATRICE A dear happiness to women: they would else have been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that: I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me. BENEDICK God keep your ladyship still in that mind! so some gentleman or other shall 'scape a predestinate scratched face. BEATRICE Scratching could not make it worse, an 'twere such a face as yours were. BENEDICK Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher. BEATRICE A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours. BENEDICK I would my horse had the speed of your tongue, and so good a continuer. But keep your way, i' God's name; I have done. BEATRICE You always end with a jade's trick: I know you of old. DON PEDRO That is the sum of all, Leonato. Signior Claudio and Signior Benedick, my dear friend Leonato hath invited you all. I tell him we shall stay here at the least a month; and he heartily prays some occasion may detain us longer. I dare swear he is no hypocrite, but prays from his heart. LEONATO If you swear, my lord, you shall not be forsworn. [To DON JOHN] Let me bid you welcome, my lord: being reconciled to the prince your brother, I owe you all duty. DON JOHN I thank you: I am not of many words, but I thank you. LEONATO Please it your grace lead on? DON PEDRO Your hand, Leonato; we will go together. [Exeunt all except BENEDICK and CLAUDIO] CLAUDIO Benedick, didst thou note the daughter of Signior Leonato? BENEDICK I noted her not; but I looked on her. CLAUDIO Is she not a modest young lady? BENEDICK Do you question me, as an honest man should do, for my simple true judgment; or would you have me speak after my custom, as being a professed tyrant to their sex? CLAUDIO No; I pray thee speak in sober judgment. BENEDICK Why, i' faith, methinks she's too low for a high praise, too brown for a fair praise and too little for a great praise: only this commendation I can afford her, that were she other than she is, she were unhandsome; and being no other but as she is, I do not like her. CLAUDIO Thou thinkest I am in sport: I pray thee tell me truly how thou likest her. BENEDICK Would you buy her, that you inquire after her? CLAUDIO Can the world buy such a jewel? BENEDICK Yea, and a case to put it into. But speak you this with a sad brow? or do you play the flouting Jack, to tell us Cupid is a good hare-finder and Vulcan a rare carpenter? Come, in what key shall a man take you, to go in the song? CLAUDIO In mine eye she is the sweetest lady that ever I looked on. BENEDICK I can see yet without spectacles and I see no such matter: there's her cousin, an she were not possessed with a fury, exceeds her as much in beauty as the first of May doth the last of December. But I hope you have no intent to turn husband, have you? CLAUDIO I would scarce trust myself, though I had sworn the contrary, if Hero would be my wife. BENEDICK Is't come to this? In faith, hath not the world one man but he will wear his cap with suspicion? Shall I never see a bachelor of three-score again? Go to, i' faith; an thou wilt needs thrust thy neck into a yoke, wear the print of it and sigh away Sundays. Look Don Pedro is returned to seek you. [Re-enter DON PEDRO] DON PEDRO What secret hath held you here, that you followed not to Leonato's? BENEDICK I would your grace would constrain me to tell. DON PEDRO I charge thee on thy allegiance. BENEDICK You hear, Count Claudio: I can be secret as a dumb man; I would have you think so; but, on my allegiance, mark you this, on my allegiance. He is in love. With who? now that is your grace's part. Mark how short his answer is;--With Hero, Leonato's short daughter. CLAUDIO If this were so, so were it uttered. BENEDICK Like the old tale, my lord: 'it is not so, nor 'twas not so, but, indeed, God forbid it should be so.' CLAUDIO If my passion change not shortly, God forbid it should be otherwise. DON PEDRO Amen, if you love her; for the lady is very well worthy. CLAUDIO You speak this to fetch me in, my lord. DON PEDRO By my troth, I speak my thought. CLAUDIO And, in faith, my lord, I spoke mine. BENEDICK And, by my two faiths and troths, my lord, I spoke mine. CLAUDIO That I love her, I feel. DON PEDRO That she is worthy, I know. BENEDICK That I neither feel how she should be loved nor know how she should be worthy, is the opinion that fire cannot melt out of me: I will die in it at the stake. DON PEDRO Thou wast ever an obstinate heretic in the despite of beauty. CLAUDIO And never could maintain his part but in the force of his will. BENEDICK That a woman conceived me, I thank her; that she brought me up, I likewise give her most humble thanks: but that I will have a recheat winded in my forehead, or hang my bugle in an invisible baldrick, all women shall pardon me. Because I will not do them the wrong to mistrust any, I will do myself the right to trust none; and the fine is, for the which I may go the finer, I will live a bachelor. DON PEDRO I shall see thee, ere I die, look pale with love. BENEDICK With anger, with sickness, or with hunger, my lord, not with love: prove that ever I lose more blood with love than I will get again with drinking, pick out mine eyes with a ballad-maker's pen and hang me up at the door of a brothel-house for the sign of blind Cupid. DON PEDRO Well, if ever thou dost fall from this faith, thou wilt prove a notable argument. BENEDICK If I do, hang me in a bottle like a cat and shoot at me; and he that hits me, let him be clapped on the shoulder, and called Adam. DON PEDRO Well, as time shall try: 'In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke.' BENEDICK The savage bull may; but if ever the sensible Benedick bear it, pluck off the bull's horns and set them in my forehead: and let me be vilely painted, and in such great letters as they write 'Here is good horse to hire,' let them signify under my sign 'Here you may see Benedick the married man.' CLAUDIO If this should ever happen, thou wouldst be horn-mad. DON PEDRO Nay, if Cupid have not spent all his quiver in Venice, thou wilt quake for this shortly. BENEDICK I look for an earthquake too, then. DON PEDRO Well, you temporize with the hours. In the meantime, good Signior Benedick, repair to Leonato's: commend me to him and tell him I will not fail him at supper; for indeed he hath made great preparation. BENEDICK I have almost matter enough in me for such an embassage; and so I commit you-- CLAUDIO To the tuition of God: From my house, if I had it,-- DON PEDRO The sixth of July: Your loving friend, Benedick. BENEDICK Nay, mock not, mock not. The body of your discourse is sometime guarded with fragments, and the guards are but slightly basted on neither: ere you flout old ends any further, examine your conscience: and so I leave you. [Exit] CLAUDIO My liege, your highness now may do me good. DON PEDRO My love is thine to teach: teach it but how, And thou shalt see how apt it is to learn Any hard lesson that may do thee good. CLAUDIO Hath Leonato any son, my lord? DON PEDRO No child but Hero; she's his only heir. Dost thou affect her, Claudio? CLAUDIO O, my lord, When you went onward on this ended action, I look'd upon her with a soldier's eye, That liked, but had a rougher task in hand Than to drive liking to the name of love: But now I am return'd and that war-thoughts Have left their places vacant, in their rooms Come thronging soft and delicate desires, All prompting me how fair young Hero is, Saying, I liked her ere I went to wars. DON PEDRO Thou wilt be like a lover presently And tire the hearer with a book of words. If thou dost love fair Hero, cherish it, And I will break with her and with her father, And thou shalt have her. Was't not to this end That thou began'st to twist so fine a story? CLAUDIO How sweetly you do minister to love, That know love's grief by his complexion! But lest my liking might too sudden seem, I would have salved it with a longer treatise. DON PEDRO What need the bridge much broader than the flood? The fairest grant is the necessity. Look, what will serve is fit: 'tis once, thou lovest, And I will fit thee with the remedy. I know we shall have revelling to-night: I will assume thy part in some disguise And tell fair Hero I am Claudio, And in her bosom I'll unclasp my heart And take her hearing prisoner with the force And strong encounter of my amorous tale: Then after to her father will I break; And the conclusion is, she shall be thine. In practise let us put it presently. [Exeunt] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING ACT I SCENE II A room in LEONATO's house. [Enter LEONATO and ANTONIO, meeting] LEONATO How now, brother! Where is my cousin, your son? hath he provided this music? ANTONIO He is very busy about it. But, brother, I can tell you strange news that you yet dreamt not of. LEONATO Are they good? ANTONIO As the event stamps them: but they have a good cover; they show well outward. The prince and Count Claudio, walking in a thick-pleached alley in mine orchard, were thus much overheard by a man of mine: the prince discovered to Claudio that he loved my niece your daughter and meant to acknowledge it this night in a dance: and if he found her accordant, he meant to take the present time by the top and instantly break with you of it. LEONATO Hath the fellow any wit that told you this? ANTONIO A good sharp fellow: I will send for him; and question him yourself. LEONATO No, no; we will hold it as a dream till it appear itself: but I will acquaint my daughter withal, that she may be the better prepared for an answer, if peradventure this be true. Go you and tell her of it. [Enter Attendants] Cousins, you know what you have to do. O, I cry you mercy, friend; go you with me, and I will use your skill. Good cousin, have a care this busy time. [Exeunt] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING ACT I SCENE III The same. [Enter DON JOHN and CONRADE] CONRADE What the good-year, my lord! why are you thus out of measure sad? DON JOHN There is no measure in the occasion that breeds; therefore the sadness is without limit. CONRADE You should hear reason. DON JOHN And when I have heard it, what blessing brings it? CONRADE If not a present remedy, at least a patient sufferance. DON JOHN I wonder that thou, being, as thou sayest thou art, born under Saturn, goest about to apply a moral medicine to a mortifying mischief. I cannot hide what I am: I must be sad when I have cause and smile at no man's jests, eat when I have stomach and wait for no man's leisure, sleep when I am drowsy and tend on no man's business, laugh when I am merry and claw no man in his humour. CONRADE Yea, but you must not make the full show of this till you may do it without controlment. You have of late stood out against your brother, and he hath ta'en you newly into his grace; where it is impossible you should take true root but by the fair weather that you make yourself: it is needful that you frame the season for your own harvest. DON JOHN I had rather be a canker in a hedge than a rose in his grace, and it better fits my blood to be disdained of all than to fashion a carriage to rob love from any: in this, though I cannot be said to be a flattering honest man, it must not be denied but I am a plain-dealing villain. I am trusted with a muzzle and enfranchised with a clog; therefore I have decreed not to sing in my cage. If I had my mouth, I would bite; if I had my liberty, I would do my liking: in the meantime let me be that I am and seek not to alter me. CONRADE Can you make no use of your discontent? DON JOHN I make all use of it, for I use it only. Who comes here? [Enter BORACHIO] What news, Borachio? BORACHIO I came yonder from a great supper: the prince your brother is royally entertained by Leonato: and I can give you intelligence of an intended marriage. DON JOHN Will it serve for any model to build mischief on? What is he for a fool that betroths himself to unquietness? BORACHIO Marry, it is your brother's right hand. DON JOHN Who? the most exquisite Claudio? BORACHIO Even he. DON JOHN A proper squire! And who, and who? which way looks he? BORACHIO Marry, on Hero, the daughter and heir of Leonato. DON JOHN A very forward March-chick! How came you to this? BORACHIO Being entertained for a perfumer, as I was smoking a musty room, comes me the prince and Claudio, hand in hand in sad conference: I whipt me behind the arras; and there heard it agreed upon that the prince should woo Hero for himself, and having obtained her, give her to Count Claudio. DON JOHN Come, come, let us thither: this may prove food to my displeasure. That young start-up hath all the glory of my overthrow: if I can cross him any way, I bless myself every way. You are both sure, and will assist me? CONRADE To the death, my lord. DON JOHN Let us to the great supper: their cheer is the greater that I am subdued. Would the cook were of my mind! Shall we go prove what's to be done? BORACHIO We'll wait upon your lordship. [Exeunt] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING ACT II SCENE I A hall in LEONATO'S house. [Enter LEONATO, ANTONIO, HERO, BEATRICE, and others] LEONATO Was not Count John here at supper? ANTONIO I saw him not. BEATRICE How tartly that gentleman looks! I never can see him but I am heart-burned an hour after. HERO He is of a very melancholy disposition. BEATRICE He were an excellent man that were made just in the midway between him and Benedick: the one is too like an image and says nothing, and the other too like my lady's eldest son, evermore tattling. LEONATO Then half Signior Benedick's tongue in Count John's mouth, and half Count John's melancholy in Signior Benedick's face,-- BEATRICE With a good leg and a good foot, uncle, and money enough in his purse, such a man would win any woman in the world, if a' could get her good-will. LEONATO By my troth, niece, thou wilt never get thee a husband, if thou be so shrewd of thy tongue. ANTONIO In faith, she's too curst. BEATRICE Too curst is more than curst: I shall lessen God's sending that way; for it is said, 'God sends a curst cow short horns;' but to a cow too curst he sends none. LEONATO So, by being too curst, God will send you no horns. BEATRICE Just, if he send me no husband; for the which blessing I am at him upon my knees every morning and evening. Lord, I could not endure a husband with a beard on his face: I had rather lie in the woollen. LEONATO You may light on a husband that hath no beard. BEATRICE What should I do with him? dress him in my apparel and make him my waiting-gentlewoman? He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man: and he that is more than a youth is not for me, and he that is less than a man, I am not for him: therefore, I will even take sixpence in earnest of the bear-ward, and lead his apes into hell. LEONATO Well, then, go you into hell? BEATRICE No, but to the gate; and there will the devil meet me, like an old cuckold, with horns on his head, and say 'Get you to heaven, Beatrice, get you to heaven; here's no place for you maids:' so deliver I up my apes, and away to Saint Peter for the heavens; he shows me where the bachelors sit, and there live we as merry as the day is long. ANTONIO [To HERO] Well, niece, I trust you will be ruled by your father. BEATRICE Yes, faith; it is my cousin's duty to make curtsy and say 'Father, as it please you.' But yet for all that, cousin, let him be a handsome fellow, or else make another curtsy and say 'Father, as it please me.' LEONATO Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband. BEATRICE Not till God make men of some other metal than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be overmastered with a pierce of valiant dust? to make an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl? No, uncle, I'll none: Adam's sons are my brethren; and, truly, I hold it a sin to match in my kindred. LEONATO Daughter, remember what I told you: if the prince do solicit you in that kind, you know your answer. BEATRICE The fault will be in the music, cousin, if you be not wooed in good time: if the prince be too important, tell him there is measure in every thing and so dance out the answer. For, hear me, Hero: wooing, wedding, and repenting, is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinque pace: the first suit is hot and hasty, like a Scotch jig, and full as fantastical; the wedding, mannerly-modest, as a measure, full of state and ancientry; and then comes repentance and, with his bad legs, falls into the cinque pace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave. LEONATO Cousin, you apprehend passing shrewdly. BEATRICE I have a good eye, uncle; I can see a church by daylight. LEONATO The revellers are entering, brother: make good room. [All put on their masks] [Enter DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK, BALTHASAR, DON JOHN, BORACHIO, MARGARET, URSULA and others, masked] DON PEDRO Lady, will you walk about with your friend? HERO So you walk softly and look sweetly and say nothing, I am yours for the walk; and especially when I walk away. DON PEDRO With me in your company? HERO I may say so, when I please. DON PEDRO And when please you to say so? HERO When I like your favour; for God defend the lute should be like the case! DON PEDRO My visor is Philemon's roof; within the house is Jove. HERO Why, then, your visor should be thatched. DON PEDRO Speak low, if you speak love. [Drawing her aside] BALTHASAR Well, I would you did like me. MARGARET So would not I, for your own sake; for I have many ill-qualities. BALTHASAR Which is one? MARGARET I say my prayers aloud. BALTHASAR I love you the better: the hearers may cry, Amen. MARGARET God match me with a good dancer! BALTHASAR Amen. MARGARET And God keep him out of my sight when the dance is done! Answer, clerk. BALTHASAR No more words: the clerk is answered. URSULA I know you well enough; you are Signior Antonio. ANTONIO At a word, I am not. URSULA I know you by the waggling of your head. ANTONIO To tell you true, I counterfeit him. URSULA You could never do him so ill-well, unless you were the very man. Here's his dry hand up and down: you are he, you are he. ANTONIO At a word, I am not. URSULA Come, come, do you think I do not know you by your excellent wit? can virtue hide itself? Go to, mum, you are he: graces will appear, and there's an end. BEATRICE Will you not tell me who told you so? BENEDICK No, you shall pardon me. BEATRICE Nor will you not tell me who you are? BENEDICK Not now. BEATRICE That I was disdainful, and that I had my good wit out of the 'Hundred Merry Tales:'--well this was Signior Benedick that said so. BENEDICK What's he? BEATRICE I am sure you know him well enough. BENEDICK Not I, believe me. BEATRICE Did he never make you laugh? BENEDICK I pray you, what is he? BEATRICE Why, he is the prince's jester: a very dull fool; only his gift is in devising impossible slanders: none but libertines delight in him; and the commendation is not in his wit, but in his villany; for he both pleases men and angers them, and then they laugh at him and beat him. I am sure he is in the fleet: I would he had boarded me. BENEDICK When I know the gentleman, I'll tell him what you say. BEATRICE Do, do: he'll but break a comparison or two on me; which, peradventure not marked or not laughed at, strikes him into melancholy; and then there's a partridge wing saved, for the fool will eat no supper that night. [Music] We must follow the leaders. BENEDICK In every good thing. BEATRICE Nay, if they lead to any ill, I will leave them at the next turning. [Dance. Then exeunt all except DON JOHN, BORACHIO, and CLAUDIO] DON JOHN Sure my brother is amorous on Hero and hath withdrawn her father to break with him about it. The ladies follow her and but one visor remains. BORACHIO And that is Claudio: I know him by his bearing. DON JOHN Are not you Signior Benedick? CLAUDIO You know me well; I am he. DON JOHN Signior, you are very near my brother in his love: he is enamoured on Hero; I pray you, dissuade him from her: she is no equal for his birth: you may do the part of an honest man in it. CLAUDIO How know you he loves her? DON JOHN I heard him swear his affection. BORACHIO So did I too; and he swore he would marry her to-night. DON JOHN Come, let us to the banquet. [Exeunt DON JOHN and BORACHIO] CLAUDIO Thus answer I in the name of Benedick, But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio. 'Tis certain so; the prince wooes for himself. Friendship is constant in all other things Save in the office and affairs of love: Therefore, all hearts in love use their own tongues; Let every eye negotiate for itself And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch Against whose charms faith melteth into blood. This is an accident of hourly proof, Which I mistrusted not. Farewell, therefore, Hero! [Re-enter BENEDICK] BENEDICK Count Claudio? CLAUDIO Yea, the same. BENEDICK Come, will you go with me? CLAUDIO Whither? BENEDICK Even to the next willow, about your own business, county. What fashion will you wear the garland of? about your neck, like an usurer's chain? or under your arm, like a lieutenant's scarf? You must wear it one way, for the prince hath got your Hero. CLAUDIO I wish him joy of her. BENEDICK Why, that's spoken like an honest drovier: so they sell bullocks. But did you think the prince would have served you thus? CLAUDIO I pray you, leave me. BENEDICK Ho! now you strike like the blind man: 'twas the boy that stole your meat, and you'll beat the post. CLAUDIO If it will not be, I'll leave you. [Exit] BENEDICK Alas, poor hurt fowl! now will he creep into sedges. But that my Lady Beatrice should know me, and not know me! The prince's fool! Ha? It may be I go under that title because I am merry. Yea, but so I am apt to do myself wrong; I am not so reputed: it is the base, though bitter, disposition of Beatrice that puts the world into her person and so gives me out. Well, I'll be revenged as I may. [Re-enter DON PEDRO] DON PEDRO Now, signior, where's the count? did you see him? BENEDICK Troth, my lord, I have played the part of Lady Fame. I found him here as melancholy as a lodge in a warren: I told him, and I think I told him true, that your grace had got the good will of this young lady; and I offered him my company to a willow-tree, either to make him a garland, as being forsaken, or to bind him up a rod, as being worthy to be whipped. DON PEDRO To be whipped! What's his fault? BENEDICK The flat transgression of a schoolboy, who, being overjoyed with finding a birds' nest, shows it his companion, and he steals it. DON PEDRO Wilt thou make a trust a transgression? The transgression is in the stealer. BENEDICK Yet it had not been amiss the rod had been made, and the garland too; for the garland he might have worn himself, and the rod he might have bestowed on you, who, as I take it, have stolen his birds' nest. DON PEDRO I will but teach them to sing, and restore them to the owner. BENEDICK If their singing answer your saying, by my faith, you say honestly. DON PEDRO The Lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you: the gentleman that danced with her told her she is much wronged by you. BENEDICK O, she misused me past the endurance of a block! an oak but with one green leaf on it would have answered her; my very visor began to assume life and scold with her. She told me, not thinking I had been myself, that I was the prince's jester, that I was duller than a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest with such impossible conveyance upon me that I stood like a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at me. She speaks poniards, and every word stabs: if her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her; she would infect to the north star. I would not marry her, though she were endowed with all that Adam bad left him before he transgressed: she would have made Hercules have turned spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make the fire too. Come, talk not of her: you shall find her the infernal Ate in good apparel. I would to God some scholar would conjure her; for certainly, while she is here, a man may live as quiet in hell as in a sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose, because they would go thither; so, indeed, all disquiet, horror and perturbation follows her. DON PEDRO Look, here she comes. [Enter CLAUDIO, BEATRICE, HERO, and LEONATO] BENEDICK Will your grace command me any service to the world's end? I will go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes that you can devise to send me on; I will fetch you a tooth-picker now from the furthest inch of Asia, bring you the length of Prester John's foot, fetch you a hair off the great Cham's beard, do you any embassage to the Pigmies, rather than hold three words' conference with this harpy. You have no employment for me? DON PEDRO None, but to desire your good company. BENEDICK O God, sir, here's a dish I love not: I cannot endure my Lady Tongue. [Exit] DON PEDRO Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick. BEATRICE Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile; and I gave him use for it, a double heart for his single one: marry, once before he won it of me with false dice, therefore your grace may well say I have lost it. DON PEDRO You have put him down, lady, you have put him down. BEATRICE So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove the mother of fools. I have brought Count Claudio, whom you sent me to seek. DON PEDRO Why, how now, count! wherefore are you sad? CLAUDIO Not sad, my lord. DON PEDRO How then? sick? CLAUDIO Neither, my lord. BEATRICE The count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well; but civil count, civil as an orange, and something of that jealous complexion. DON PEDRO I' faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true; though, I'll be sworn, if he be so, his conceit is false. Here, Claudio, I have wooed in thy name, and fair Hero is won: I have broke with her father, and his good will obtained: name the day of marriage, and God give thee joy! LEONATO Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes: his grace hath made the match, and an grace say Amen to it. BEATRICE Speak, count, 'tis your cue. CLAUDIO Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were but little happy, if I could say how much. Lady, as you are mine, I am yours: I give away myself for you and dote upon the exchange. BEATRICE Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth with a kiss, and let not him speak neither. DON PEDRO In faith, lady, you have a merry heart. BEATRICE Yea, my lord; I thank it, poor fool, it keeps on the windy side of care. My cousin tells him in his ear that he is in her heart. CLAUDIO And so she doth, cousin. BEATRICE Good Lord, for alliance! Thus goes every one to the world but I, and I am sunburnt; I may sit in a corner and cry heigh-ho for a husband! DON PEDRO Lady Beatrice, I will get you one. BEATRICE I would rather have one of your father's getting. Hath your grace ne'er a brother like you? Your father got excellent husbands, if a maid could come by them. DON PEDRO Will you have me, lady? BEATRICE No, my lord, unless I might have another for working-days: your grace is too costly to wear every day. But, I beseech your grace, pardon me: I was born to speak all mirth and no matter. DON PEDRO Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you; for, out of question, you were born in a merry hour. BEATRICE No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star danced, and under that was I born. Cousins, God give you joy! LEONATO Niece, will you look to those things I told you of? BEATRICE I cry you mercy, uncle. By your grace's pardon. [Exit] DON PEDRO By my troth, a pleasant-spirited lady. LEONATO There's little of the melancholy element in her, my lord: she is never sad but when she sleeps, and not ever sad then; for I have heard my daughter say, she hath often dreamed of unhappiness and waked herself with laughing. DON PEDRO She cannot endure to hear tell of a husband. LEONATO O, by no means: she mocks all her wooers out of suit. DON PEDRO She were an excellent wife for Benedict. LEONATO O Lord, my lord, if they were but a week married, they would talk themselves mad. DON PEDRO County Claudio, when mean you to go to church? CLAUDIO To-morrow, my lord: time goes on crutches till love have all his rites. LEONATO Not till Monday, my dear son, which is hence a just seven-night; and a time too brief, too, to have all things answer my mind. DON PEDRO Come, you shake the head at so long a breathing: but, I warrant thee, Claudio, the time shall not go dully by us. I will in the interim undertake one of Hercules' labours; which is, to bring Signior Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of affection the one with the other. I would fain have it a match, and I doubt not but to fashion it, if you three will but minister such assistance as I shall give you direction. LEONATO My lord, I am for you, though it cost me ten nights' watchings. CLAUDIO And I, my lord. DON PEDRO And you too, gentle Hero? HERO I will do any modest office, my lord, to help my cousin to a good husband. DON PEDRO And Benedick is not the unhopefullest husband that I know. Thus far can I praise him; he is of a noble strain, of approved valour and confirmed honesty. I will teach you how to humour your cousin, that she shall fall in love with Benedick; and I, with your two helps, will so practise on Benedick that, in despite of his quick wit and his queasy stomach, he shall fall in love with Beatrice. If we can do this, Cupid is no longer an archer: his glory shall be ours, for we are the only love-gods. Go in with me, and I will tell you my drift. [Exeunt] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING ACT II SCENE II The same. [Enter DON JOHN and BORACHIO] DON JOHN It is so; the Count Claudio shall marry the daughter of Leonato. BORACHIO Yea, my lord; but I can cross it. DON JOHN Any bar, any cross, any impediment will be medicinable to me: I am sick in displeasure to him, and whatsoever comes athwart his affection ranges evenly with mine. How canst thou cross this marriage? BORACHIO Not honestly, my lord; but so covertly that no dishonesty shall appear in me. DON JOHN Show me briefly how. BORACHIO I think I told your lordship a year since, how much I am in the favour of Margaret, the waiting gentlewoman to Hero. DON JOHN I remember. BORACHIO I can, at any unseasonable instant of the night, appoint her to look out at her lady's chamber window. DON JOHN What life is in that, to be the death of this marriage? BORACHIO The poison of that lies in you to temper. Go you to the prince your brother; spare not to tell him that he hath wronged his honour in marrying the renowned Claudio--whose estimation do you mightily hold up--to a contaminated stale, such a one as Hero. DON JOHN What proof shall I make of that? BORACHIO Proof enough to misuse the prince, to vex Claudio, to undo Hero and kill Leonato. Look you for any other issue? DON JOHN Only to despite them, I will endeavour any thing. BORACHIO Go, then; find me a meet hour to draw Don Pedro and the Count Claudio alone: tell them that you know that Hero loves me; intend a kind of zeal both to the prince and Claudio, as,--in love of your brother's honour, who hath made this match, and his friend's reputation, who is thus like to be cozened with the semblance of a maid,--that you have discovered thus. They will scarcely believe this without trial: offer them instances; which shall bear no less likelihood than to see me at her chamber-window, hear me call Margaret Hero, hear Margaret term me Claudio; and bring them to see this the very night before the intended wedding,--for in the meantime I will so fashion the matter that Hero shall be absent,--and there shall appear such seeming truth of Hero's disloyalty that jealousy shall be called assurance and all the preparation overthrown. DON JOHN Grow this to what adverse issue it can, I will put it in practise. Be cunning in the working this, and thy fee is a thousand ducats. BORACHIO Be you constant in the accusation, and my cunning shall not shame me. DON JOHN I will presently go learn their day of marriage. [Exeunt] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING ACT II SCENE III LEONATO'S orchard. [Enter BENEDICK] BENEDICK Boy! [Enter Boy] Boy Signior? BENEDICK In my chamber-window lies a book: bring it hither to me in the orchard. Boy I am here already, sir. BENEDICK I know that; but I would have thee hence, and here again. [Exit Boy] I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviors to love, will, after he hath laughed at such shallow follies in others, become the argument of his own scorn by failing in love: and such a man is Claudio. I have known when there was no music with him but the drum and the fife; and now had he rather hear the tabour and the pipe: I have known when he would have walked ten mile a-foot to see a good armour; and now will he lie ten nights awake, carving the fashion of a new doublet. He was wont to speak plain and to the purpose, like an honest man and a soldier; and now is he turned orthography; his words are a very fantastical banquet, just so many strange dishes. May I be so converted and see with these eyes? I cannot tell; I think not: I will not be sworn, but love may transform me to an oyster; but I'll take my oath on it, till he have made an oyster of me, he shall never make me such a fool. One woman is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace. Rich she shall be, that's certain; wise, or I'll none; virtuous, or I'll never cheapen her; fair, or I'll never look on her; mild, or come not near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall be of what colour it please God. Ha! the prince and Monsieur Love! I will hide me in the arbour. [Withdraws] [Enter DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, and LEONATO] DON PEDRO Come, shall we hear this music? CLAUDIO Yea, my good lord. How still the evening is, As hush'd on purpose to grace harmony! DON PEDRO See you where Benedick hath hid himself? CLAUDIO O, very well, my lord: the music ended, We'll fit the kid-fox with a pennyworth. [Enter BALTHASAR with Music] DON PEDRO Come, Balthasar, we'll hear that song again. BALTHASAR O, good my lord, tax not so bad a voice To slander music any more than once. DON PEDRO It is the witness still of excellency To put a strange face on his own perfection. I pray thee, sing, and let me woo no more. BALTHASAR Because you talk of wooing, I will sing; Since many a wooer doth commence his suit To her he thinks not worthy, yet he wooes, Yet will he swear he loves. DON PEDRO Now, pray thee, come; Or, if thou wilt hold longer argument, Do it in notes. BALTHASAR Note this before my notes; There's not a note of mine that's worth the noting. DON PEDRO Why, these are very crotchets that he speaks; Note, notes, forsooth, and nothing. [Air] BENEDICK Now, divine air! now is his soul ravished! Is it not strange that sheeps' guts should hale souls out of men's bodies? Well, a horn for my money, when all's done. [The Song] BALTHASAR Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more, Men were deceivers ever, One foot in sea and one on shore, To one thing constant never: Then sigh not so, but let them go, And be you blithe and bonny, Converting all your sounds of woe Into Hey nonny, nonny. Sing no more ditties, sing no moe, Of dumps so dull and heavy; The fraud of men was ever so, Since summer first was leafy: Then sigh not so, &c. DON PEDRO By my troth, a good song. BALTHASAR And an ill singer, my lord. DON PEDRO Ha, no, no, faith; thou singest well enough for a shift. BENEDICK An he had been a dog that should have howled thus, they would have hanged him: and I pray God his bad voice bode no mischief. I had as lief have heard the night-raven, come what plague could have come after it. DON PEDRO Yea, marry, dost thou hear, Balthasar? I pray thee, get us some excellent music; for to-morrow night we would have it at the Lady Hero's chamber-window. BALTHASAR The best I can, my lord. DON PEDRO Do so: farewell. [Exit BALTHASAR] Come hither, Leonato. What was it you told me of to-day, that your niece Beatrice was in love with Signior Benedick? CLAUDIO O, ay: stalk on. stalk on; the fowl sits. I did never think that lady would have loved any man. LEONATO No, nor I neither; but most wonderful that she should so dote on Signior Benedick, whom she hath in all outward behaviors seemed ever to abhor. BENEDICK Is't possible? Sits the wind in that corner? LEONATO By my troth, my lord, I cannot tell what to think of it but that she loves him with an enraged affection: it is past the infinite of thought. DON PEDRO May be she doth but counterfeit. CLAUDIO Faith, like enough. LEONATO O God, counterfeit! There was never counterfeit of passion came so near the life of passion as she discovers it. DON PEDRO Why, what effects of passion shows she? CLAUDIO Bait the hook well; this fish will bite. LEONATO What effects, my lord? She will sit you, you heard my daughter tell you how. CLAUDIO She did, indeed. DON PEDRO How, how, pray you? You amaze me: I would have I thought her spirit had been invincible against all assaults of affection. LEONATO I would have sworn it had, my lord; especially against Benedick. BENEDICK I should think this a gull, but that the white-bearded fellow speaks it: knavery cannot, sure, hide himself in such reverence. CLAUDIO He hath ta'en the infection: hold it up. DON PEDRO Hath she made her affection known to Benedick? LEONATO No; and swears she never will: that's her torment. CLAUDIO 'Tis true, indeed; so your daughter says: 'Shall I,' says she, 'that have so oft encountered him with scorn, write to him that I love him?' LEONATO This says she now when she is beginning to write to him; for she'll be up twenty times a night, and there will she sit in her smock till she have writ a sheet of paper: my daughter tells us all. CLAUDIO Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a pretty jest your daughter told us of. LEONATO O, when she had writ it and was reading it over, she found Benedick and Beatrice between the sheet? CLAUDIO That. LEONATO O, she tore the letter into a thousand halfpence; railed at herself, that she should be so immodest to write to one that she knew would flout her; 'I measure him,' says she, 'by my own spirit; for I should flout him, if he writ to me; yea, though I love him, I should.' CLAUDIO Then down upon her knees she falls, weeps, sobs, beats her heart, tears her hair, prays, curses; 'O sweet Benedick! God give me patience!' LEONATO She doth indeed; my daughter says so: and the ecstasy hath so much overborne her that my daughter is sometime afeared she will do a desperate outrage to herself: it is very true. DON PEDRO It were good that Benedick knew of it by some other, if she will not discover it. CLAUDIO To what end? He would make but a sport of it and torment the poor lady worse. DON PEDRO An he should, it were an alms to hang him. She's an excellent sweet lady; and, out of all suspicion, she is virtuous. CLAUDIO And she is exceeding wise. DON PEDRO In every thing but in loving Benedick. LEONATO O, my lord, wisdom and blood combating in so tender a body, we have ten proofs to one that blood hath the victory. I am sorry for her, as I have just cause, being her uncle and her guardian. DON PEDRO I would she had bestowed this dotage on me: I would have daffed all other respects and made her half myself. I pray you, tell Benedick of it, and hear what a' will say. LEONATO Were it good, think you? CLAUDIO Hero thinks surely she will die; for she says she will die, if he love her not, and she will die, ere she make her love known, and she will die, if he woo her, rather than she will bate one breath of her accustomed crossness. DON PEDRO She doth well: if she should make tender of her love, 'tis very possible he'll scorn it; for the man, as you know all, hath a contemptible spirit. CLAUDIO He is a very proper man. DON PEDRO He hath indeed a good outward happiness. CLAUDIO Before God! and, in my mind, very wise. DON PEDRO He doth indeed show some sparks that are like wit. CLAUDIO And I take him to be valiant. DON PEDRO As Hector, I assure you: and in the managing of quarrels you may say he is wise; for either he avoids them with great discretion, or undertakes them with a most Christian-like fear. LEONATO If he do fear God, a' must necessarily keep peace: if he break the peace, he ought to enter into a quarrel with fear and trembling. DON PEDRO And so will he do; for the man doth fear God, howsoever it seems not in him by some large jests he will make. Well I am sorry for your niece. Shall we go seek Benedick, and tell him of her love? CLAUDIO Never tell him, my lord: let her wear it out with good counsel. LEONATO Nay, that's impossible: she may wear her heart out first. DON PEDRO Well, we will hear further of it by your daughter: let it cool the while. I love Benedick well; and I could wish he would modestly examine himself, to see how much he is unworthy so good a lady. LEONATO My lord, will you walk? dinner is ready. CLAUDIO If he do not dote on her upon this, I will never trust my expectation. DON PEDRO Let there be the same net spread for her; and that must your daughter and her gentlewomen carry. The sport will be, when they hold one an opinion of another's dotage, and no such matter: that's the scene that I would see, which will be merely a dumb-show. Let us send her to call him in to dinner. [Exeunt DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, and LEONATO] BENEDICK [Coming forward] This can be no trick: the conference was sadly borne. They have the truth of this from Hero. They seem to pity the lady: it seems her affections have their full bent. Love me! why, it must be requited. I hear how I am censured: they say I will bear myself proudly, if I perceive the love come from her; they say too that she will rather die than give any sign of affection. I did never think to marry: I must not seem proud: happy are they that hear their detractions and can put them to mending. They say the lady is fair; 'tis a truth, I can bear them witness; and virtuous; 'tis so, I cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving me; by my troth, it is no addition to her wit, nor no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her. I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me, because I have railed so long against marriage: but doth not the appetite alter? a man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of his humour? No, the world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married. Here comes Beatrice. By this day! she's a fair lady: I do spy some marks of love in her. [Enter BEATRICE] BEATRICE Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner. BENEDICK Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains. BEATRICE I took no more pains for those thanks than you take pains to thank me: if it had been painful, I would not have come. BENEDICK You take pleasure then in the message? BEATRICE Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knife's point and choke a daw withal. You have no stomach, signior: fare you well. [Exit] BENEDICK Ha! 'Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner;' there's a double meaning in that 'I took no more pains for those thanks than you took pains to thank me.' that's as much as to say, Any pains that I take for you is as easy as thanks. If I do not take pity of her, I am a villain; if I do not love her, I am a Jew. I will go get her picture. [Exit] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING ACT III SCENE I LEONATO'S garden. [Enter HERO, MARGARET, and URSULA] HERO Good Margaret, run thee to the parlor; There shalt thou find my cousin Beatrice Proposing with the prince and Claudio: Whisper her ear and tell her, I and Ursula Walk in the orchard and our whole discourse Is all of her; say that thou overheard'st us; And bid her steal into the pleached bower, Where honeysuckles, ripen'd by the sun, Forbid the sun to enter, like favourites, Made proud by princes, that advance their pride Against that power that bred it: there will she hide her, To listen our purpose. This is thy office; Bear thee well in it and leave us alone. MARGARET I'll make her come, I warrant you, presently. [Exit] HERO Now, Ursula, when Beatrice doth come, As we do trace this alley up and down, Our talk must only be of Benedick. When I do name him, let it be thy part To praise him more than ever man did merit: My talk to thee must be how Benedick Is sick in love with Beatrice. Of this matter Is little Cupid's crafty arrow made, That only wounds by hearsay. [Enter BEATRICE, behind] Now begin; For look where Beatrice, like a lapwing, runs Close by the ground, to hear our conference. URSULA The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish Cut with her golden oars the silver stream, And greedily devour the treacherous bait: So angle we for Beatrice; who even now Is couched in the woodbine coverture. Fear you not my part of the dialogue. HERO Then go we near her, that her ear lose nothing Of the false sweet bait that we lay for it. [Approaching the bower] No, truly, Ursula, she is too disdainful; I know her spirits are as coy and wild As haggerds of the rock. URSULA But are you sure That Benedick loves Beatrice so entirely? HERO So says the prince and my new-trothed lord. URSULA And did they bid you tell her of it, madam? HERO They did entreat me to acquaint her of it; But I persuaded them, if they loved Benedick, To wish him wrestle with affection, And never to let Beatrice know of it. URSULA Why did you so? Doth not the gentleman Deserve as full as fortunate a bed As ever Beatrice shall couch upon? HERO O god of love! I know he doth deserve As much as may be yielded to a man: But Nature never framed a woman's heart Of prouder stuff than that of Beatrice; Disdain and scorn ride sparkling in her eyes, Misprising what they look on, and her wit Values itself so highly that to her All matter else seems weak: she cannot love, Nor take no shape nor project of affection, She is so self-endeared. URSULA Sure, I think so; And therefore certainly it were not good She knew his love, lest she make sport at it. HERO Why, you speak truth. I never yet saw man, How wise, how noble, young, how rarely featured, But she would spell him backward: if fair-faced, She would swear the gentleman should be her sister; If black, why, Nature, drawing of an antique, Made a foul blot; if tall, a lance ill-headed; If low, an agate very vilely cut; If speaking, why, a vane blown with all winds; If silent, why, a block moved with none. So turns she every man the wrong side out And never gives to truth and virtue that Which simpleness and merit purchaseth. URSULA Sure, sure, such carping is not commendable. HERO No, not to be so odd and from all fashions As Beatrice is, cannot be commendable: But who dare tell her so? If I should speak, She would mock me into air; O, she would laugh me Out of myself, press me to death with wit. Therefore let Benedick, like cover'd fire, Consume away in sighs, waste inwardly: It were a better death than die with mocks, Which is as bad as die with tickling. URSULA Yet tell her of it: hear what she will say. HERO No; rather I will go to Benedick And counsel him to fight against his passion. And, truly, I'll devise some honest slanders To stain my cousin with: one doth not know How much an ill word may empoison liking. URSULA O, do not do your cousin such a wrong. She cannot be so much without true judgment-- Having so swift and excellent a wit As she is prized to have--as to refuse So rare a gentleman as Signior Benedick. HERO He is the only man of Italy. Always excepted my dear Claudio. URSULA I pray you, be not angry with me, madam, Speaking my fancy: Signior Benedick, For shape, for bearing, argument and valour, Goes foremost in report through Italy. HERO Indeed, he hath an excellent good name. URSULA His excellence did earn it, ere he had it. When are you married, madam? HERO Why, every day, to-morrow. Come, go in: I'll show thee some attires, and have thy counsel Which is the best to furnish me to-morrow. URSULA She's limed, I warrant you: we have caught her, madam. HERO If it proves so, then loving goes by haps: Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps. [Exeunt HERO and URSULA] BEATRICE [Coming forward] What fire is in mine ears? Can this be true? Stand I condemn'd for pride and scorn so much? Contempt, farewell! and maiden pride, adieu! No glory lives behind the back of such. And, Benedick, love on; I will requite thee, Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand: If thou dost love, my kindness shall incite thee To bind our loves up in a holy band; For others say thou dost deserve, and I Believe it better than reportingly. [Exit] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING ACT III SCENE II A room in LEONATO'S house [Enter DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK, and LEONATO] DON PEDRO I do but stay till your marriage be consummate, and then go I toward Arragon. CLAUDIO I'll bring you thither, my lord, if you'll vouchsafe me. DON PEDRO Nay, that would be as great a soil in the new gloss of your marriage as to show a child his new coat and forbid him to wear it. I will only be bold with Benedick for his company; for, from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, he is all mirth: he hath twice or thrice cut Cupid's bow-string and the little hangman dare not shoot at him; he hath a heart as sound as a bell and his tongue is the clapper, for what his heart thinks his tongue speaks. BENEDICK Gallants, I am not as I have been. LEONATO So say I methinks you are sadder. CLAUDIO I hope he be in love. DON PEDRO Hang him, truant! there's no true drop of blood in him, to be truly touched with love: if he be sad, he wants money. BENEDICK I have the toothache. DON PEDRO Draw it. BENEDICK Hang it! CLAUDIO You must hang it first, and draw it afterwards. DON PEDRO What! sigh for the toothache? LEONATO Where is but a humour or a worm. BENEDICK Well, every one can master a grief but he that has it. CLAUDIO Yet say I, he is in love. DON PEDRO There is no appearance of fancy in him, unless it be a fancy that he hath to strange disguises; as, to be a Dutchman today, a Frenchman to-morrow, or in the shape of two countries at once, as, a German from the waist downward, all slops, and a Spaniard from the hip upward, no doublet. Unless he have a fancy to this foolery, as it appears he hath, he is no fool for fancy, as you would have it appear he is. CLAUDIO If he be not in love with some woman, there is no believing old signs: a' brushes his hat o' mornings; what should that bode? DON PEDRO Hath any man seen him at the barber's? CLAUDIO No, but the barber's man hath been seen with him, and the old ornament of his cheek hath already stuffed tennis-balls. LEONATO Indeed, he looks younger than he did, by the loss of a beard. DON PEDRO Nay, a' rubs himself with civet: can you smell him out by that? CLAUDIO That's as much as to say, the sweet youth's in love. DON PEDRO The greatest note of it is his melancholy. CLAUDIO And when was he wont to wash his face? DON PEDRO Yea, or to paint himself? for the which, I hear what they say of him. CLAUDIO Nay, but his jesting spirit; which is now crept into a lute-string and now governed by stops. DON PEDRO Indeed, that tells a heavy tale for him: conclude, conclude he is in love. CLAUDIO Nay, but I know who loves him. DON PEDRO That would I know too: I warrant, one that knows him not. CLAUDIO Yes, and his ill conditions; and, in despite of all, dies for him. DON PEDRO She shall be buried with her face upwards. BENEDICK Yet is this no charm for the toothache. Old signior, walk aside with me: I have studied eight or nine wise words to speak to you, which these hobby-horses must not hear. [Exeunt BENEDICK and LEONATO] DON PEDRO For my life, to break with him about Beatrice. CLAUDIO 'Tis even so. Hero and Margaret have by this played their parts with Beatrice; and then the two bears will not bite one another when they meet. [Enter DON JOHN] DON JOHN My lord and brother, God save you! DON PEDRO Good den, brother. DON JOHN If your leisure served, I would speak with you. DON PEDRO In private? DON JOHN If it please you: yet Count Claudio may hear; for what I would speak of concerns him. DON PEDRO What's the matter? DON JOHN [To CLAUDIO] Means your lordship to be married to-morrow? DON PEDRO You know he does. DON JOHN I know not that, when he knows what I know. CLAUDIO If there be any impediment, I pray you discover it. DON JOHN You may think I love you not: let that appear hereafter, and aim better at me by that I now will manifest. For my brother, I think he holds you well, and in dearness of heart hath holp to effect your ensuing marriage;--surely suit ill spent and labour ill bestowed. DON PEDRO Why, what's the matter? DON JOHN I came hither to tell you; and, circumstances shortened, for she has been too long a talking of, the lady is disloyal. CLAUDIO Who, Hero? DON PEDRO Even she; Leonato's Hero, your Hero, every man's Hero: CLAUDIO Disloyal? DON JOHN The word is too good to paint out her wickedness; I could say she were worse: think you of a worse title, and I will fit her to it. Wonder not till further warrant: go but with me to-night, you shall see her chamber-window entered, even the night before her wedding-day: if you love her then, to-morrow wed her; but it would better fit your honour to change your mind. CLAUDIO May this be so? DON PEDRO I will not think it. DON JOHN If you dare not trust that you see, confess not that you know: if you will follow me, I will show you enough; and when you have seen more and heard more, proceed accordingly. CLAUDIO If I see any thing to-night why I should not marry her to-morrow in the congregation, where I should wed, there will I shame her. DON PEDRO And, as I wooed for thee to obtain her, I will join with thee to disgrace her. DON JOHN I will disparage her no farther till you are my witnesses: bear it coldly but till midnight, and let the issue show itself. DON PEDRO O day untowardly turned! CLAUDIO O mischief strangely thwarting! DON JOHN O plague right well prevented! so will you say when you have seen the sequel. [Exeunt] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING ACT III SCENE III A street. [Enter DOGBERRY and VERGES with the Watch] DOGBERRY Are you good men and true? VERGES Yea, or else it were pity but they should suffer salvation, body and soul. DOGBERRY Nay, that were a punishment too good for them, if they should have any allegiance in them, being chosen for the prince's watch. VERGES Well, give them their charge, neighbour Dogberry. DOGBERRY First, who think you the most desertless man to be constable? First Watchman Hugh Otecake, sir, or George Seacole; for they can write and read. DOGBERRY Come hither, neighbour Seacole. God hath blessed you with a good name: to be a well-favoured man is the gift of fortune; but to write and read comes by nature. Second Watchman Both which, master constable,-- DOGBERRY You have: I knew it would be your answer. Well, for your favour, sir, why, give God thanks, and make no boast of it; and for your writing and reading, let that appear when there is no need of such vanity. You are thought here to be the most senseless and fit man for the constable of the watch; therefore bear you the lantern. This is your charge: you shall comprehend all vagrom men; you are to bid any man stand, in the prince's name. Second Watchman How if a' will not stand? DOGBERRY Why, then, take no note of him, but let him go; and presently call the rest of the watch together and thank God you are rid of a knave. VERGES If he will not stand when he is bidden, he is none of the prince's subjects. DOGBERRY True, and they are to meddle with none but the prince's subjects. You shall also make no noise in the streets; for, for the watch to babble and to talk is most tolerable and not to be endured. Watchman We will rather sleep than talk: we know what belongs to a watch. DOGBERRY Why, you speak like an ancient and most quiet watchman; for I cannot see how sleeping should offend: only, have a care that your bills be not stolen. Well, you are to call at all the ale-houses, and bid those that are drunk get them to bed. Watchman How if they will not? DOGBERRY Why, then, let them alone till they are sober: if they make you not then the better answer, you may say they are not the men you took them for. Watchman Well, sir. DOGBERRY If you meet a thief, you may suspect him, by virtue of your office, to be no true man; and, for such kind of men, the less you meddle or make with them, why the more is for your honesty. Watchman If we know him to be a thief, shall we not lay hands on him? DOGBERRY Truly, by your office, you may; but I think they that touch pitch will be defiled: the most peaceable way for you, if you do take a thief, is to let him show himself what he is and steal out of your company. VERGES You have been always called a merciful man, partner. DOGBERRY Truly, I would not hang a dog by my will, much more a man who hath any honesty in him. VERGES If you hear a child cry in the night, you must call to the nurse and bid her still it. Watchman How if the nurse be asleep and will not hear us? DOGBERRY Why, then, depart in peace, and let the child wake her with crying; for the ewe that will not hear her lamb when it baes will never answer a calf when he bleats. VERGES 'Tis very true. DOGBERRY This is the end of the charge:--you, constable, are to present the prince's own person: if you meet the prince in the night, you may stay him. VERGES Nay, by'r our lady, that I think a' cannot. DOGBERRY Five shillings to one on't, with any man that knows the statutes, he may stay him: marry, not without the prince be willing; for, indeed, the watch ought to offend no man; and it is an offence to stay a man against his will. VERGES By'r lady, I think it be so. DOGBERRY Ha, ha, ha! Well, masters, good night: an there be any matter of weight chances, call up me: keep your fellows' counsels and your own; and good night. Come, neighbour. Watchman Well, masters, we hear our charge: let us go sit here upon the church-bench till two, and then all to bed. DOGBERRY One word more, honest neighbours. I pray you watch about Signior Leonato's door; for the wedding being there to-morrow, there is a great coil to-night. Adieu: be vigitant, I beseech you. [Exeunt DOGBERRY and VERGES] [Enter BORACHIO and CONRADE] BORACHIO What Conrade! Watchman [Aside] Peace! stir not. BORACHIO Conrade, I say! CONRADE Here, man; I am at thy elbow. BORACHIO Mass, and my elbow itched; I thought there would a scab follow. CONRADE I will owe thee an answer for that: and now forward with thy tale. BORACHIO Stand thee close, then, under this pent-house, for it drizzles rain; and I will, like a true drunkard, utter all to thee. Watchman [Aside] Some treason, masters: yet stand close. BORACHIO Therefore know I have earned of Don John a thousand ducats. CONRADE Is it possible that any villany should be so dear? BORACHIO Thou shouldst rather ask if it were possible any villany should be so rich; for when rich villains have need of poor ones, poor ones may make what price they will. CONRADE I wonder at it. BORACHIO That shows thou art unconfirmed. Thou knowest that the fashion of a doublet, or a hat, or a cloak, is nothing to a man. CONRADE Yes, it is apparel. BORACHIO I mean, the fashion. CONRADE Yes, the fashion is the fashion. BORACHIO Tush! I may as well say the fool's the fool. But seest thou not what a deformed thief this fashion is? Watchman [Aside] I know that Deformed; a' has been a vile thief this seven year; a' goes up and down like a gentleman: I remember his name. BORACHIO Didst thou not hear somebody? CONRADE No; 'twas the vane on the house. BORACHIO Seest thou not, I say, what a deformed thief this fashion is? how giddily a' turns about all the hot bloods between fourteen and five-and-thirty? sometimes fashioning them like Pharaoh's soldiers in the reeky painting, sometime like god Bel's priests in the old church-window, sometime like the shaven Hercules in the smirched worm-eaten tapestry, where his codpiece seems as massy as his club? CONRADE All this I see; and I see that the fashion wears out more apparel than the man. But art not thou thyself giddy with the fashion too, that thou hast shifted out of thy tale into telling me of the fashion? BORACHIO Not so, neither: but know that I have to-night wooed Margaret, the Lady Hero's gentlewoman, by the name of Hero: she leans me out at her mistress' chamber-window, bids me a thousand times good night,--I tell this tale vilely:--I should first tell thee how the prince, Claudio and my master, planted and placed and possessed by my master Don John, saw afar off in the orchard this amiable encounter. CONRADE And thought they Margaret was Hero? BORACHIO Two of them did, the prince and Claudio; but the devil my master knew she was Margaret; and partly by his oaths, which first possessed them, partly by the dark night, which did deceive them, but chiefly by my villany, which did confirm any slander that Don John had made, away went Claudio enraged; swore he would meet her, as he was appointed, next morning at the temple, and there, before the whole congregation, shame her with what he saw o'er night and send her home again without a husband. First Watchman We charge you, in the prince's name, stand! Second Watchman Call up the right master constable. We have here recovered the most dangerous piece of lechery that ever was known in the commonwealth. First Watchman And one Deformed is one of them: I know him; a' wears a lock. CONRADE Masters, masters,-- Second Watchman You'll be made bring Deformed forth, I warrant you. CONRADE Masters,-- First Watchman Never speak: we charge you let us obey you to go with us. BORACHIO We are like to prove a goodly commodity, being taken up of these men's bills. CONRADE A commodity in question, I warrant you. Come, we'll obey you. [Exeunt] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING ACT III SCENE IV HERO's apartment. [Enter HERO, MARGARET, and URSULA] HERO Good Ursula, wake my cousin Beatrice, and desire her to rise. URSULA I will, lady. HERO And bid her come hither. URSULA Well. [Exit] MARGARET Troth, I think your other rabato were better. HERO No, pray thee, good Meg, I'll wear this. MARGARET By my troth, 's not so good; and I warrant your cousin will say so. HERO My cousin's a fool, and thou art another: I'll wear none but this. MARGARET I like the new tire within excellently, if the hair were a thought browner; and your gown's a most rare fashion, i' faith. I saw the Duchess of Milan's gown that they praise so. HERO O, that exceeds, they say. MARGARET By my troth, 's but a night-gown in respect of yours: cloth o' gold, and cuts, and laced with silver, set with pearls, down sleeves, side sleeves, and skirts, round underborne with a bluish tinsel: but for a fine, quaint, graceful and excellent fashion, yours is worth ten on 't. HERO God give me joy to wear it! for my heart is exceeding heavy. MARGARET 'Twill be heavier soon by the weight of a man. HERO Fie upon thee! art not ashamed? MARGARET Of what, lady? of speaking honourably? Is not marriage honourable in a beggar? Is not your lord honourable without marriage? I think you would have me say, 'saving your reverence, a husband:' and bad thinking do not wrest true speaking, I'll offend nobody: is there any harm in 'the heavier for a husband'? None, I think, and it be the right husband and the right wife; otherwise 'tis light, and not heavy: ask my Lady Beatrice else; here she comes. [Enter BEATRICE] HERO Good morrow, coz. BEATRICE Good morrow, sweet Hero. HERO Why how now? do you speak in the sick tune? BEATRICE I am out of all other tune, methinks. MARGARET Clap's into 'Light o' love;' that goes without a burden: do you sing it, and I'll dance it. BEATRICE Ye light o' love, with your heels! then, if your husband have stables enough, you'll see he shall lack no barns. MARGARET O illegitimate construction! I scorn that with my heels. BEATRICE 'Tis almost five o'clock, cousin; tis time you were ready. By my troth, I am exceeding ill: heigh-ho! MARGARET For a hawk, a horse, or a husband? BEATRICE For the letter that begins them all, H. MARGARET Well, and you be not turned Turk, there's no more sailing by the star. BEATRICE What means the fool, trow? MARGARET Nothing I; but God send every one their heart's desire! HERO These gloves the count sent me; they are an excellent perfume. BEATRICE I am stuffed, cousin; I cannot smell. MARGARET A maid, and stuffed! there's goodly catching of cold. BEATRICE O, God help me! God help me! how long have you professed apprehension? MARGARET Even since you left it. Doth not my wit become me rarely? BEATRICE It is not seen enough, you should wear it in your cap. By my troth, I am sick. MARGARET Get you some of this distilled Carduus Benedictus, and lay it to your heart: it is the only thing for a qualm. HERO There thou prickest her with a thistle. BEATRICE Benedictus! why Benedictus? you have some moral in this Benedictus. MARGARET Moral! no, by my troth, I have no moral meaning; I meant, plain holy-thistle. You may think perchance that I think you are in love: nay, by'r lady, I am not such a fool to think what I list, nor I list not to think what I can, nor indeed I cannot think, if I would think my heart out of thinking, that you are in love or that you will be in love or that you can be in love. Yet Benedick was such another, and now is he become a man: he swore he would never marry, and yet now, in despite of his heart, he eats his meat without grudging: and how you may be converted I know not, but methinks you look with your eyes as other women do. BEATRICE What pace is this that thy tongue keeps? MARGARET Not a false gallop. [Re-enter URSULA] URSULA Madam, withdraw: the prince, the count, Signior Benedick, Don John, and all the gallants of the town, are come to fetch you to church. HERO Help to dress me, good coz, good Meg, good Ursula. [Exeunt] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING ACT III SCENE V Another room in LEONATO'S house. [Enter LEONATO, with DOGBERRY and VERGES] LEONATO What would you with me, honest neighbour? DOGBERRY Marry, sir, I would have some confidence with you that decerns you nearly. LEONATO Brief, I pray you; for you see it is a busy time with me. DOGBERRY Marry, this it is, sir. VERGES Yes, in truth it is, sir. LEONATO What is it, my good friends? DOGBERRY Goodman Verges, sir, speaks a little off the matter: an old man, sir, and his wits are not so blunt as, God help, I would desire they were; but, in faith, honest as the skin between his brows. VERGES Yes, I thank God I am as honest as any man living that is an old man and no honester than I. DOGBERRY Comparisons are odorous: palabras, neighbour Verges. LEONATO Neighbours, you are tedious. DOGBERRY It pleases your worship to say so, but we are the poor duke's officers; but truly, for mine own part, if I were as tedious as a king, I could find it in my heart to bestow it all of your worship. LEONATO All thy tediousness on me, ah? DOGBERRY Yea, an 'twere a thousand pound more than 'tis; for I hear as good exclamation on your worship as of any man in the city; and though I be but a poor man, I am glad to hear it. VERGES And so am I. LEONATO I would fain know what you have to say. VERGES Marry, sir, our watch to-night, excepting your worship's presence, ha' ta'en a couple of as arrant knaves as any in Messina. DOGBERRY A good old man, sir; he will be talking: as they say, when the age is in, the wit is out: God help us! it is a world to see. Well said, i' faith, neighbour Verges: well, God's a good man; an two men ride of a horse, one must ride behind. An honest soul, i' faith, sir; by my troth he is, as ever broke bread; but God is to be worshipped; all men are not alike; alas, good neighbour! LEONATO Indeed, neighbour, he comes too short of you. DOGBERRY Gifts that God gives. LEONATO I must leave you. DOGBERRY One word, sir: our watch, sir, have indeed comprehended two aspicious persons, and we would have them this morning examined before your worship. LEONATO Take their examination yourself and bring it me: I am now in great haste, as it may appear unto you. DOGBERRY It shall be suffigance. LEONATO Drink some wine ere you go: fare you well. [Enter a Messenger] Messenger My lord, they stay for you to give your daughter to her husband. LEONATO I'll wait upon them: I am ready. [Exeunt LEONATO and Messenger] DOGBERRY Go, good partner, go, get you to Francis Seacole; bid him bring his pen and inkhorn to the gaol: we are now to examination these men. VERGES And we must do it wisely. DOGBERRY We will spare for no wit, I warrant you; here's that shall drive some of them to a non-come: only get the learned writer to set down our excommunication and meet me at the gaol. [Exeunt] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING ACT IV SCENE I A church. [Enter DON PEDRO, DON JOHN, LEONATO, FRIAR FRANCIS, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK, HERO, BEATRICE, and Attendants] LEONATO Come, Friar Francis, be brief; only to the plain form of marriage, and you shall recount their particular duties afterwards. FRIAR FRANCIS You come hither, my lord, to marry this lady. CLAUDIO No. LEONATO To be married to her: friar, you come to marry her. FRIAR FRANCIS Lady, you come hither to be married to this count. HERO I do. FRIAR FRANCIS If either of you know any inward impediment why you should not be conjoined, charge you, on your souls, to utter it. CLAUDIO Know you any, Hero? HERO None, my lord. FRIAR FRANCIS Know you any, count? LEONATO I dare make his answer, none. CLAUDIO O, what men dare do! what men may do! what men daily do, not knowing what they do! BENEDICK How now! interjections? Why, then, some be of laughing, as, ah, ha, he! CLAUDIO Stand thee by, friar. Father, by your leave: Will you with free and unconstrained soul Give me this maid, your daughter? LEONATO As freely, son, as God did give her me. CLAUDIO And what have I to give you back, whose worth May counterpoise this rich and precious gift? DON PEDRO Nothing, unless you render her again. CLAUDIO Sweet prince, you learn me noble thankfulness. There, Leonato, take her back again: Give not this rotten orange to your friend; She's but the sign and semblance of her honour. Behold how like a maid she blushes here! O, what authority and show of truth Can cunning sin cover itself withal! Comes not that blood as modest evidence To witness simple virtue? Would you not swear, All you that see her, that she were a maid, By these exterior shows? But she is none: She knows the heat of a luxurious bed; Her blush is guiltiness, not modesty. LEONATO What do you mean, my lord? CLAUDIO Not to be married, Not to knit my soul to an approved wanton. LEONATO Dear my lord, if you, in your own proof, Have vanquish'd the resistance of her youth, And made defeat of her virginity,-- CLAUDIO I know what you would say: if I have known her, You will say she did embrace me as a husband, And so extenuate the 'forehand sin: No, Leonato, I never tempted her with word too large; But, as a brother to his sister, show'd Bashful sincerity and comely love. HERO And seem'd I ever otherwise to you? CLAUDIO Out on thee! Seeming! I will write against it: You seem to me as Dian in her orb, As chaste as is the bud ere it be blown; But you are more intemperate in your blood Than Venus, or those pamper'd animals That rage in savage sensuality. HERO Is my lord well, that he doth speak so wide? LEONATO Sweet prince, why speak not you? DON PEDRO What should I speak? I stand dishonour'd, that have gone about To link my dear friend to a common stale. LEONATO Are these things spoken, or do I but dream? DON JOHN Sir, they are spoken, and these things are true. BENEDICK This looks not like a nuptial. HERO True! O God! CLAUDIO Leonato, stand I here? Is this the prince? is this the prince's brother? Is this face Hero's? are our eyes our own? LEONATO All this is so: but what of this, my lord? CLAUDIO Let me but move one question to your daughter; And, by that fatherly and kindly power That you have in her, bid her answer truly. LEONATO I charge thee do so, as thou art my child. HERO O, God defend me! how am I beset! What kind of catechising call you this? CLAUDIO To make you answer truly to your name. HERO Is it not Hero? Who can blot that name With any just reproach? CLAUDIO Marry, that can Hero; Hero itself can blot out Hero's virtue. What man was he talk'd with you yesternight Out at your window betwixt twelve and one? Now, if you are a maid, answer to this. HERO I talk'd with no man at that hour, my lord. DON PEDRO Why, then are you no maiden. Leonato, I am sorry you must hear: upon mine honour, Myself, my brother and this grieved count Did see her, hear her, at that hour last night Talk with a ruffian at her chamber-window Who hath indeed, most like a liberal villain, Confess'd the vile encounters they have had A thousand times in secret. DON JOHN Fie, fie! they are not to be named, my lord, Not to be spoke of; There is not chastity enough in language Without offence to utter them. Thus, pretty lady, I am sorry for thy much misgovernment. CLAUDIO O Hero, what a Hero hadst thou been, If half thy outward graces had been placed About thy thoughts and counsels of thy heart! But fare thee well, most foul, most fair! farewell, Thou pure impiety and impious purity! For thee I'll lock up all the gates of love, And on my eyelids shall conjecture hang, To turn all beauty into thoughts of harm, And never shall it more be gracious. LEONATO Hath no man's dagger here a point for me? [HERO swoons] BEATRICE Why, how now, cousin! wherefore sink you down? DON JOHN Come, let us go. These things, come thus to light, Smother her spirits up. [Exeunt DON PEDRO, DON JOHN, and CLAUDIO] BENEDICK How doth the lady? BEATRICE Dead, I think. Help, uncle! Hero! why, Hero! Uncle! Signior Benedick! Friar! LEONATO O Fate! take not away thy heavy hand. Death is the fairest cover for her shame That may be wish'd for. BEATRICE How now, cousin Hero! FRIAR FRANCIS Have comfort, lady. LEONATO Dost thou look up? FRIAR FRANCIS Yea, wherefore should she not? LEONATO Wherefore! Why, doth not every earthly thing Cry shame upon her? Could she here deny The story that is printed in her blood? Do not live, Hero; do not ope thine eyes: For, did I think thou wouldst not quickly die, Thought I thy spirits were stronger than thy shames, Myself would, on the rearward of reproaches, Strike at thy life. Grieved I, I had but one? Chid I for that at frugal nature's frame? O, one too much by thee! Why had I one? Why ever wast thou lovely in my eyes? Why had I not with charitable hand Took up a beggar's issue at my gates, Who smirch'd thus and mired with infamy, I might have said 'No part of it is mine; This shame derives itself from unknown loins'? But mine and mine I loved and mine I praised And mine that I was proud on, mine so much That I myself was to myself not mine, Valuing of her,--why, she, O, she is fallen Into a pit of ink, that the wide sea Hath drops too few to wash her clean again And salt too little which may season give To her foul-tainted flesh! BENEDICK Sir, sir, be patient. For my part, I am so attired in wonder, I know not what to say. BEATRICE O, on my soul, my cousin is belied! BENEDICK Lady, were you her bedfellow last night? BEATRICE No, truly not; although, until last night, I have this twelvemonth been her bedfellow. LEONATO Confirm'd, confirm'd! O, that is stronger made Which was before barr'd up with ribs of iron! Would the two princes lie, and Claudio lie, Who loved her so, that, speaking of her foulness, Wash'd it with tears? Hence from her! let her die. FRIAR FRANCIS Hear me a little; for I have only been Silent so long and given way unto This course of fortune [ ] By noting of the lady I have mark'd A thousand blushing apparitions To start into her face, a thousand innocent shames In angel whiteness beat away those blushes; And in her eye there hath appear'd a fire, To burn the errors that these princes hold Against her maiden truth. Call me a fool; Trust not my reading nor my observations, Which with experimental seal doth warrant The tenor of my book; trust not my age, My reverence, calling, nor divinity, If this sweet lady lie not guiltless here Under some biting error. LEONATO Friar, it cannot be. Thou seest that all the grace that she hath left Is that she will not add to her damnation A sin of perjury; she not denies it: Why seek'st thou then to cover with excuse That which appears in proper nakedness? FRIAR FRANCIS Lady, what man is he you are accused of? HERO They know that do accuse me; I know none: If I know more of any man alive Than that which maiden modesty doth warrant, Let all my sins lack mercy! O my father, Prove you that any man with me conversed At hours unmeet, or that I yesternight Maintain'd the change of words with any creature, Refuse me, hate me, torture me to death! FRIAR FRANCIS There is some strange misprision in the princes. BENEDICK Two of them have the very bent of honour; And if their wisdoms be misled in this, The practise of it lives in John the bastard, Whose spirits toil in frame of villanies. LEONATO I know not. If they speak but truth of her, These hands shall tear her; if they wrong her honour, The proudest of them shall well hear of it. Time hath not yet so dried this blood of mine, Nor age so eat up my invention, Nor fortune made such havoc of my means, Nor my bad life reft me so much of friends, But they shall find, awaked in such a kind, Both strength of limb and policy of mind, Ability in means and choice of friends, To quit me of them throughly. FRIAR FRANCIS Pause awhile, And let my counsel sway you in this case. Your daughter here the princes left for dead: Let her awhile be secretly kept in, And publish it that she is dead indeed; Maintain a mourning ostentation And on your family's old monument Hang mournful epitaphs and do all rites That appertain unto a burial. LEONATO What shall become of this? what will this do? FRIAR FRANCIS Marry, this well carried shall on her behalf Change slander to remorse; that is some good: But not for that dream I on this strange course, But on this travail look for greater birth. She dying, as it must so be maintain'd, Upon the instant that she was accused, Shall be lamented, pitied and excused Of every hearer: for it so falls out That what we have we prize not to the worth Whiles we enjoy it, but being lack'd and lost, Why, then we rack the value, then we find The virtue that possession would not show us Whiles it was ours. So will it fare with Claudio: When he shall hear she died upon his words, The idea of her life shall sweetly creep Into his study of imagination, And every lovely organ of her life Shall come apparell'd in more precious habit, More moving-delicate and full of life, Into the eye and prospect of his soul, Than when she lived indeed; then shall he mourn, If ever love had interest in his liver, And wish he had not so accused her, No, though he thought his accusation true. Let this be so, and doubt not but success Will fashion the event in better shape Than I can lay it down in likelihood. But if all aim but this be levell'd false, The supposition of the lady's death Will quench the wonder of her infamy: And if it sort not well, you may conceal her, As best befits her wounded reputation, In some reclusive and religious life, Out of all eyes, tongues, minds and injuries. BENEDICK Signior Leonato, let the friar advise you: And though you know my inwardness and love Is very much unto the prince and Claudio, Yet, by mine honour, I will deal in this As secretly and justly as your soul Should with your body. LEONATO Being that I flow in grief, The smallest twine may lead me. FRIAR FRANCIS 'Tis well consented: presently away; For to strange sores strangely they strain the cure. Come, lady, die to live: this wedding-day Perhaps is but prolong'd: have patience and endure. [Exeunt all but BENEDICK and BEATRICE] BENEDICK Lady Beatrice, have you wept all this while? BEATRICE Yea, and I will weep a while longer. BENEDICK I will not desire that. BEATRICE You have no reason; I do it freely. BENEDICK Surely I do believe your fair cousin is wronged. BEATRICE Ah, how much might the man deserve of me that would right her! BENEDICK Is there any way to show such friendship? BEATRICE A very even way, but no such friend. BENEDICK May a man do it? BEATRICE It is a man's office, but not yours. BENEDICK I do love nothing in the world so well as you: is not that strange? BEATRICE As strange as the thing I know not. It were as possible for me to say I loved nothing so well as you: but believe me not; and yet I lie not; I confess nothing, nor I deny nothing. I am sorry for my cousin. BENEDICK By my sword, Beatrice, thou lovest me. BEATRICE Do not swear, and eat it. BENEDICK I will swear by it that you love me; and I will make him eat it that says I love not you. BEATRICE Will you not eat your word? BENEDICK With no sauce that can be devised to it. I protest I love thee. BEATRICE Why, then, God forgive me! BENEDICK What offence, sweet Beatrice? BEATRICE You have stayed me in a happy hour: I was about to protest I loved you. BENEDICK And do it with all thy heart. BEATRICE I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest. BENEDICK Come, bid me do any thing for thee. BEATRICE Kill Claudio. BENEDICK Ha! not for the wide world. BEATRICE You kill me to deny it. Farewell. BENEDICK Tarry, sweet Beatrice. BEATRICE I am gone, though I am here: there is no love in you: nay, I pray you, let me go. BENEDICK Beatrice,-- BEATRICE In faith, I will go. BENEDICK We'll be friends first. BEATRICE You dare easier be friends with me than fight with mine enemy. BENEDICK Is Claudio thine enemy? BEATRICE Is he not approved in the height a villain, that hath slandered, scorned, dishonoured my kinswoman? O that I were a man! What, bear her in hand until they come to take hands; and then, with public accusation, uncovered slander, unmitigated rancour, --O God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the market-place. BENEDICK Hear me, Beatrice,-- BEATRICE Talk with a man out at a window! A proper saying! BENEDICK Nay, but, Beatrice,-- BEATRICE Sweet Hero! She is wronged, she is slandered, she is undone. BENEDICK Beat-- BEATRICE Princes and counties! Surely, a princely testimony, a goodly count, Count Comfect; a sweet gallant, surely! O that I were a man for his sake! or that I had any friend would be a man for my sake! But manhood is melted into courtesies, valour into compliment, and men are only turned into tongue, and trim ones too: he is now as valiant as Hercules that only tells a lie and swears it. I cannot be a man with wishing, therefore I will die a woman with grieving. BENEDICK Tarry, good Beatrice. By this hand, I love thee. BEATRICE Use it for my love some other way than swearing by it. BENEDICK Think you in your soul the Count Claudio hath wronged Hero? BEATRICE Yea, as sure as I have a thought or a soul. BENEDICK Enough, I am engaged; I will challenge him. I will kiss your hand, and so I leave you. By this hand, Claudio shall render me a dear account. As you hear of me, so think of me. Go, comfort your cousin: I must say she is dead: and so, farewell. [Exeunt] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING ACT IV SCENE II A prison. [Enter DOGBERRY, VERGES, and Sexton, in gowns; and the Watch, with CONRADE and BORACHIO] DOGBERRY Is our whole dissembly appeared? VERGES O, a stool and a cushion for the sexton. Sexton Which be the malefactors? DOGBERRY Marry, that am I and my partner. VERGES Nay, that's certain; we have the exhibition to examine. Sexton But which are the offenders that are to be examined? let them come before master constable. DOGBERRY Yea, marry, let them come before me. What is your name, friend? BORACHIO Borachio. DOGBERRY Pray, write down, Borachio. Yours, sirrah? CONRADE I am a gentleman, sir, and my name is Conrade. DOGBERRY Write down, master gentleman Conrade. Masters, do you serve God? CONRADE | | Yea, sir, we hope. BORACHIO | DOGBERRY Write down, that they hope they serve God: and write God first; for God defend but God should go before such villains! Masters, it is proved already that you are little better than false knaves; and it will go near to be thought so shortly. How answer you for yourselves? CONRADE Marry, sir, we say we are none. DOGBERRY A marvellous witty fellow, I assure you: but I will go about with him. Come you hither, sirrah; a word in your ear: sir, I say to you, it is thought you are false knaves. BORACHIO Sir, I say to you we are none. DOGBERRY Well, stand aside. 'Fore God, they are both in a tale. Have you writ down, that they are none? Sexton Master constable, you go not the way to examine: you must call forth the watch that are their accusers. DOGBERRY Yea, marry, that's the eftest way. Let the watch come forth. Masters, I charge you, in the prince's name, accuse these men. First Watchman This man said, sir, that Don John, the prince's brother, was a villain. DOGBERRY Write down Prince John a villain. Why, this is flat perjury, to call a prince's brother villain. BORACHIO Master constable,-- DOGBERRY Pray thee, fellow, peace: I do not like thy look, I promise thee. Sexton What heard you him say else? Second Watchman Marry, that he had received a thousand ducats of Don John for accusing the Lady Hero wrongfully. DOGBERRY Flat burglary as ever was committed. VERGES Yea, by mass, that it is. Sexton What else, fellow? First Watchman And that Count Claudio did mean, upon his words, to disgrace Hero before the whole assembly. and not marry her. DOGBERRY O villain! thou wilt be condemned into everlasting redemption for this. Sexton What else? Watchman This is all. Sexton And this is more, masters, than you can deny. Prince John is this morning secretly stolen away; Hero was in this manner accused, in this very manner refused, and upon the grief of this suddenly died. Master constable, let these men be bound, and brought to Leonato's: I will go before and show him their examination. [Exit] DOGBERRY Come, let them be opinioned. VERGES Let them be in the hands-- CONRADE Off, coxcomb! DOGBERRY God's my life, where's the sexton? let him write down the prince's officer coxcomb. Come, bind them. Thou naughty varlet! CONRADE Away! you are an ass, you are an ass. DOGBERRY Dost thou not suspect my place? dost thou not suspect my years? O that he were here to write me down an ass! But, masters, remember that I am an ass; though it be not written down, yet forget not that I am an ass. No, thou villain, thou art full of piety, as shall be proved upon thee by good witness. I am a wise fellow, and, which is more, an officer, and, which is more, a householder, and, which is more, as pretty a piece of flesh as any is in Messina, and one that knows the law, go to; and a rich fellow enough, go to; and a fellow that hath had losses, and one that hath two gowns and every thing handsome about him. Bring him away. O that I had been writ down an ass! [Exeunt] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING ACT V SCENE I Before LEONATO'S house. [Enter LEONATO and ANTONIO] ANTONIO If you go on thus, you will kill yourself: And 'tis not wisdom thus to second grief Against yourself. LEONATO I pray thee, cease thy counsel, Which falls into mine ears as profitless As water in a sieve: give not me counsel; Nor let no comforter delight mine ear But such a one whose wrongs do suit with mine. Bring me a father that so loved his child, Whose joy of her is overwhelm'd like mine, And bid him speak of patience; Measure his woe the length and breadth of mine And let it answer every strain for strain, As thus for thus and such a grief for such, In every lineament, branch, shape, and form: If such a one will smile and stroke his beard, Bid sorrow wag, cry 'hem!' when he should groan, Patch grief with proverbs, make misfortune drunk With candle-wasters; bring him yet to me, And I of him will gather patience. But there is no such man: for, brother, men Can counsel and speak comfort to that grief Which they themselves not feel; but, tasting it, Their counsel turns to passion, which before Would give preceptial medicine to rage, Fetter strong madness in a silken thread, Charm ache with air and agony with words: No, no; 'tis all men's office to speak patience To those that wring under the load of sorrow, But no man's virtue nor sufficiency To be so moral when he shall endure The like himself. Therefore give me no counsel: My griefs cry louder than advertisement. ANTONIO Therein do men from children nothing differ. LEONATO I pray thee, peace. I will be flesh and blood; For there was never yet philosopher That could endure the toothache patiently, However they have writ the style of gods And made a push at chance and sufferance. ANTONIO Yet bend not all the harm upon yourself; Make those that do offend you suffer too. LEONATO There thou speak'st reason: nay, I will do so. My soul doth tell me Hero is belied; And that shall Claudio know; so shall the prince And all of them that thus dishonour her. ANTONIO Here comes the prince and Claudio hastily. [Enter DON PEDRO and CLAUDIO] DON PEDRO Good den, good den. CLAUDIO Good day to both of you. LEONATO Hear you. my lords,-- DON PEDRO We have some haste, Leonato. LEONATO Some haste, my lord! well, fare you well, my lord: Are you so hasty now? well, all is one. DON PEDRO Nay, do not quarrel with us, good old man. ANTONIO If he could right himself with quarreling, Some of us would lie low. CLAUDIO Who wrongs him? LEONATO Marry, thou dost wrong me; thou dissembler, thou:-- Nay, never lay thy hand upon thy sword; I fear thee not. CLAUDIO Marry, beshrew my hand, If it should give your age such cause of fear: In faith, my hand meant nothing to my sword. LEONATO Tush, tush, man; never fleer and jest at me: I speak not like a dotard nor a fool, As under privilege of age to brag What I have done being young, or what would do Were I not old. Know, Claudio, to thy head, Thou hast so wrong'd mine innocent child and me That I am forced to lay my reverence by And, with grey hairs and bruise of many days, Do challenge thee to trial of a man. I say thou hast belied mine innocent child; Thy slander hath gone through and through her heart, And she lies buried with her ancestors; O, in a tomb where never scandal slept, Save this of hers, framed by thy villany! CLAUDIO My villany? LEONATO Thine, Claudio; thine, I say. DON PEDRO You say not right, old man. LEONATO My lord, my lord, I'll prove it on his body, if he dare, Despite his nice fence and his active practise, His May of youth and bloom of lustihood. CLAUDIO Away! I will not have to do with you. LEONATO Canst thou so daff me? Thou hast kill'd my child: If thou kill'st me, boy, thou shalt kill a man. ANTONIO He shall kill two of us, and men indeed: But that's no matter; let him kill one first; Win me and wear me; let him answer me. Come, follow me, boy; come, sir boy, come, follow me: Sir boy, I'll whip you from your foining fence; Nay, as I am a gentleman, I will. LEONATO Brother,-- ANTONIO Content yourself. God knows I loved my niece; And she is dead, slander'd to death by villains, That dare as well answer a man indeed As I dare take a serpent by the tongue: Boys, apes, braggarts, Jacks, milksops! LEONATO Brother Antony,-- ANTONIO Hold you content. What, man! I know them, yea, And what they weigh, even to the utmost scruple,-- Scrambling, out-facing, fashion-monging boys, That lie and cog and flout, deprave and slander, Go anticly, show outward hideousness, And speak off half a dozen dangerous words, How they might hurt their enemies, if they durst; And this is all. LEONATO But, brother Antony,-- ANTONIO Come, 'tis no matter: Do not you meddle; let me deal in this. DON PEDRO Gentlemen both, we will not wake your patience. My heart is sorry for your daughter's death: But, on my honour, she was charged with nothing But what was true and very full of proof. LEONATO My lord, my lord,-- DON PEDRO I will not hear you. LEONATO No? Come, brother; away! I will be heard. ANTONIO And shall, or some of us will smart for it. [Exeunt LEONATO and ANTONIO] DON PEDRO See, see; here comes the man we went to seek. [Enter BENEDICK] CLAUDIO Now, signior, what news? BENEDICK Good day, my lord. DON PEDRO Welcome, signior: you are almost come to part almost a fray. CLAUDIO We had like to have had our two noses snapped off with two old men without teeth. DON PEDRO Leonato and his brother. What thinkest thou? Had we fought, I doubt we should have been too young for them. BENEDICK In a false quarrel there is no true valour. I came to seek you both. CLAUDIO We have been up and down to seek thee; for we are high-proof melancholy and would fain have it beaten away. Wilt thou use thy wit? BENEDICK It is in my scabbard: shall I draw it? DON PEDRO Dost thou wear thy wit by thy side? CLAUDIO Never any did so, though very many have been beside their wit. I will bid thee draw, as we do the minstrels; draw, to pleasure us. DON PEDRO As I am an honest man, he looks pale. Art thou sick, or angry? CLAUDIO What, courage, man! What though care killed a cat, thou hast mettle enough in thee to kill care. BENEDICK Sir, I shall meet your wit in the career, and you charge it against me. I pray you choose another subject. CLAUDIO Nay, then, give him another staff: this last was broke cross. DON PEDRO By this light, he changes more and more: I think he be angry indeed. CLAUDIO If he be, he knows how to turn his girdle. BENEDICK Shall I speak a word in your ear? CLAUDIO God bless me from a challenge! BENEDICK [Aside to CLAUDIO] You are a villain; I jest not: I will make it good how you dare, with what you dare, and when you dare. Do me right, or I will protest your cowardice. You have killed a sweet lady, and her death shall fall heavy on you. Let me hear from you. CLAUDIO Well, I will meet you, so I may have good cheer. DON PEDRO What, a feast, a feast? CLAUDIO I' faith, I thank him; he hath bid me to a calf's head and a capon; the which if I do not carve most curiously, say my knife's naught. Shall I not find a woodcock too? BENEDICK Sir, your wit ambles well; it goes easily. DON PEDRO I'll tell thee how Beatrice praised thy wit the other day. I said, thou hadst a fine wit: 'True,' said she, 'a fine little one.' 'No,' said I, 'a great wit:' 'Right,' says she, 'a great gross one.' 'Nay,' said I, 'a good wit:' 'Just,' said she, 'it hurts nobody.' 'Nay,' said I, 'the gentleman is wise:' 'Certain,' said she, 'a wise gentleman.' 'Nay,' said I, 'he hath the tongues:' 'That I believe,' said she, 'for he swore a thing to me on Monday night, which he forswore on Tuesday morning; there's a double tongue; there's two tongues.' Thus did she, an hour together, transshape thy particular virtues: yet at last she concluded with a sigh, thou wast the properest man in Italy. CLAUDIO For the which she wept heartily and said she cared not. DON PEDRO Yea, that she did: but yet, for all that, an if she did not hate him deadly, she would love him dearly: the old man's daughter told us all. CLAUDIO All, all; and, moreover, God saw him when he was hid in the garden. DON PEDRO But when shall we set the savage bull's horns on the sensible Benedick's head? CLAUDIO Yea, and text underneath, 'Here dwells Benedick the married man'? BENEDICK Fare you well, boy: you know my mind. I will leave you now to your gossip-like humour: you break jests as braggarts do their blades, which God be thanked, hurt not. My lord, for your many courtesies I thank you: I must discontinue your company: your brother the bastard is fled from Messina: you have among you killed a sweet and innocent lady. For my Lord Lackbeard there, he and I shall meet: and, till then, peace be with him. [Exit] DON PEDRO He is in earnest. CLAUDIO In most profound earnest; and, I'll warrant you, for the love of Beatrice. DON PEDRO And hath challenged thee. CLAUDIO Most sincerely. DON PEDRO What a pretty thing man is when he goes in his doublet and hose and leaves off his wit! CLAUDIO He is then a giant to an ape; but then is an ape a doctor to such a man. DON PEDRO But, soft you, let me be: pluck up, my heart, and be sad. Did he not say, my brother was fled? [Enter DOGBERRY, VERGES, and the Watch, with CONRADE and BORACHIO] DOGBERRY Come you, sir: if justice cannot tame you, she shall ne'er weigh more reasons in her balance: nay, an you be a cursing hypocrite once, you must be looked to. DON PEDRO How now? two of my brother's men bound! Borachio one! CLAUDIO Hearken after their offence, my lord. DON PEDRO Officers, what offence have these men done? DOGBERRY Marry, sir, they have committed false report; moreover, they have spoken untruths; secondarily, they are slanders; sixth and lastly, they have belied a lady; thirdly, they have verified unjust things; and, to conclude, they are lying knaves. DON PEDRO First, I ask thee what they have done; thirdly, I ask thee what's their offence; sixth and lastly, why they are committed; and, to conclude, what you lay to their charge. CLAUDIO Rightly reasoned, and in his own division: and, by my troth, there's one meaning well suited. DON PEDRO Who have you offended, masters, that you are thus bound to your answer? this learned constable is too cunning to be understood: what's your offence? BORACHIO Sweet prince, let me go no farther to mine answer: do you hear me, and let this count kill me. I have deceived even your very eyes: what your wisdoms could not discover, these shallow fools have brought to light: who in the night overheard me confessing to this man how Don John your brother incensed me to slander the Lady Hero, how you were brought into the orchard and saw me court Margaret in Hero's garments, how you disgraced her, when you should marry her: my villany they have upon record; which I had rather seal with my death than repeat over to my shame. The lady is dead upon mine and my master's false accusation; and, briefly, I desire nothing but the reward of a villain. DON PEDRO Runs not this speech like iron through your blood? CLAUDIO I have drunk poison whiles he utter'd it. DON PEDRO But did my brother set thee on to this? BORACHIO Yea, and paid me richly for the practise of it. DON PEDRO He is composed and framed of treachery: And fled he is upon this villany. CLAUDIO Sweet Hero! now thy image doth appear In the rare semblance that I loved it first. DOGBERRY Come, bring away the plaintiffs: by this time our sexton hath reformed Signior Leonato of the matter: and, masters, do not forget to specify, when time and place shall serve, that I am an ass. VERGES Here, here comes master Signior Leonato, and the Sexton too. [Re-enter LEONATO and ANTONIO, with the Sexton] LEONATO Which is the villain? let me see his eyes, That, when I note another man like him, I may avoid him: which of these is he? BORACHIO If you would know your wronger, look on me. LEONATO Art thou the slave that with thy breath hast kill'd Mine innocent child? BORACHIO Yea, even I alone. LEONATO No, not so, villain; thou beliest thyself: Here stand a pair of honourable men; A third is fled, that had a hand in it. I thank you, princes, for my daughter's death: Record it with your high and worthy deeds: 'Twas bravely done, if you bethink you of it. CLAUDIO I know not how to pray your patience; Yet I must speak. Choose your revenge yourself; Impose me to what penance your invention Can lay upon my sin: yet sinn'd I not But in mistaking. DON PEDRO By my soul, nor I: And yet, to satisfy this good old man, I would bend under any heavy weight That he'll enjoin me to. LEONATO I cannot bid you bid my daughter live; That were impossible: but, I pray you both, Possess the people in Messina here How innocent she died; and if your love Can labour ought in sad invention, Hang her an epitaph upon her tomb And sing it to her bones, sing it to-night: To-morrow morning come you to my house, And since you could not be my son-in-law, Be yet my nephew: my brother hath a daughter, Almost the copy of my child that's dead, And she alone is heir to both of us: Give her the right you should have given her cousin, And so dies my revenge. CLAUDIO O noble sir, Your over-kindness doth wring tears from me! I do embrace your offer; and dispose For henceforth of poor Claudio. LEONATO To-morrow then I will expect your coming; To-night I take my leave. This naughty man Shall face to face be brought to Margaret, Who I believe was pack'd in all this wrong, Hired to it by your brother. BORACHIO No, by my soul, she was not, Nor knew not what she did when she spoke to me, But always hath been just and virtuous In any thing that I do know by her. DOGBERRY Moreover, sir, which indeed is not under white and black, this plaintiff here, the offender, did call me ass: I beseech you, let it be remembered in his punishment. And also, the watch heard them talk of one Deformed: they say be wears a key in his ear and a lock hanging by it, and borrows money in God's name, the which he hath used so long and never paid that now men grow hard-hearted and will lend nothing for God's sake: pray you, examine him upon that point. LEONATO I thank thee for thy care and honest pains. DOGBERRY Your worship speaks like a most thankful and reverend youth; and I praise God for you. LEONATO There's for thy pains. DOGBERRY God save the foundation! LEONATO Go, I discharge thee of thy prisoner, and I thank thee. DOGBERRY I leave an arrant knave with your worship; which I beseech your worship to correct yourself, for the example of others. God keep your worship! I wish your worship well; God restore you to health! I humbly give you leave to depart; and if a merry meeting may be wished, God prohibit it! Come, neighbour. [Exeunt DOGBERRY and VERGES] LEONATO Until to-morrow morning, lords, farewell. ANTONIO Farewell, my lords: we look for you to-morrow. DON PEDRO We will not fail. CLAUDIO To-night I'll mourn with Hero. LEONATO [To the Watch] Bring you these fellows on. We'll talk with Margaret, How her acquaintance grew with this lewd fellow. [Exeunt, severally] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING ACT V SCENE II LEONATO'S garden. [Enter BENEDICK and MARGARET, meeting] BENEDICK Pray thee, sweet Mistress Margaret, deserve well at my hands by helping me to the speech of Beatrice. MARGARET Will you then write me a sonnet in praise of my beauty? BENEDICK In so high a style, Margaret, that no man living shall come over it; for, in most comely truth, thou deservest it. MARGARET To have no man come over me! why, shall I always keep below stairs? BENEDICK Thy wit is as quick as the greyhound's mouth; it catches. MARGARET And yours as blunt as the fencer's foils, which hit, but hurt not. BENEDICK A most manly wit, Margaret; it will not hurt a woman: and so, I pray thee, call Beatrice: I give thee the bucklers. MARGARET Give us the swords; we have bucklers of our own. BENEDICK If you use them, Margaret, you must put in the pikes with a vice; and they are dangerous weapons for maids. MARGARET Well, I will call Beatrice to you, who I think hath legs. BENEDICK And therefore will come. [Exit MARGARET] [Sings] The god of love, That sits above, And knows me, and knows me, How pitiful I deserve,-- I mean in singing; but in loving, Leander the good swimmer, Troilus the first employer of panders, and a whole bookful of these quondam carpet-mangers, whose names yet run smoothly in the even road of a blank verse, why, they were never so truly turned over and over as my poor self in love. Marry, I cannot show it in rhyme; I have tried: I can find out no rhyme to 'lady' but 'baby,' an innocent rhyme; for 'scorn,' 'horn,' a hard rhyme; for, 'school,' 'fool,' a babbling rhyme; very ominous endings: no, I was not born under a rhyming planet, nor I cannot woo in festival terms. [Enter BEATRICE] Sweet Beatrice, wouldst thou come when I called thee? BEATRICE Yea, signior, and depart when you bid me. BENEDICK O, stay but till then! BEATRICE 'Then' is spoken; fare you well now: and yet, ere I go, let me go with that I came; which is, with knowing what hath passed between you and Claudio. BENEDICK Only foul words; and thereupon I will kiss thee. BEATRICE Foul words is but foul wind, and foul wind is but foul breath, and foul breath is noisome; therefore I will depart unkissed. BENEDICK Thou hast frighted the word out of his right sense, so forcible is thy wit. But I must tell thee plainly, Claudio undergoes my challenge; and either I must shortly hear from him, or I will subscribe him a coward. And, I pray thee now, tell me for which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me? BEATRICE For them all together; which maintained so politic a state of evil that they will not admit any good part to intermingle with them. But for which of my good parts did you first suffer love for me? BENEDICK Suffer love! a good epithet! I do suffer love indeed, for I love thee against my will. BEATRICE In spite of your heart, I think; alas, poor heart! If you spite it for my sake, I will spite it for yours; for I will never love that which my friend hates. BENEDICK Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably. BEATRICE It appears not in this confession: there's not one wise man among twenty that will praise himself. BENEDICK An old, an old instance, Beatrice, that lived in the lime of good neighbours. If a man do not erect in this age his own tomb ere he dies, he shall live no longer in monument than the bell rings and the widow weeps. BEATRICE And how long is that, think you? BENEDICK Question: why, an hour in clamour and a quarter in rheum: therefore is it most expedient for the wise, if Don Worm, his conscience, find no impediment to the contrary, to be the trumpet of his own virtues, as I am to myself. So much for praising myself, who, I myself will bear witness, is praiseworthy: and now tell me, how doth your cousin? BEATRICE Very ill. BENEDICK And how do you? BEATRICE Very ill too. BENEDICK Serve God, love me and mend. There will I leave you too, for here comes one in haste. [Enter URSULA] URSULA Madam, you must come to your uncle. Yonder's old coil at home: it is proved my Lady Hero hath been falsely accused, the prince and Claudio mightily abused; and Don John is the author of all, who is fed and gone. Will you come presently? BEATRICE Will you go hear this news, signior? BENEDICK I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in thy eyes; and moreover I will go with thee to thy uncle's. [Exeunt] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING ACT V SCENE III A church. [Enter DON PEDRO, CLAUDIO, and three or four with tapers] CLAUDIO Is this the monument of Leonato? Lord It is, my lord. CLAUDIO [Reading out of a scroll] Done to death by slanderous tongues Was the Hero that here lies: Death, in guerdon of her wrongs, Gives her fame which never dies. So the life that died with shame Lives in death with glorious fame. Hang thou there upon the tomb, Praising her when I am dumb. Now, music, sound, and sing your solemn hymn. SONG. Pardon, goddess of the night, Those that slew thy virgin knight; For the which, with songs of woe, Round about her tomb they go. Midnight, assist our moan; Help us to sigh and groan, Heavily, heavily: Graves, yawn and yield your dead, Till death be uttered, Heavily, heavily. CLAUDIO Now, unto thy bones good night! Yearly will I do this rite. DON PEDRO Good morrow, masters; put your torches out: The wolves have prey'd; and look, the gentle day, Before the wheels of Phoebus, round about Dapples the drowsy east with spots of grey. Thanks to you all, and leave us: fare you well. CLAUDIO Good morrow, masters: each his several way. DON PEDRO Come, let us hence, and put on other weeds; And then to Leonato's we will go. CLAUDIO And Hymen now with luckier issue speed's Than this for whom we render'd up this woe. [Exeunt] MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING ACT V SCENE IV A room in LEONATO'S house. [Enter LEONATO, ANTONIO, BENEDICK, BEATRICE, MARGARET, URSULA, FRIAR FRANCIS, and HERO] FRIAR FRANCIS Did I not tell you she was innocent? LEONATO So are the prince and Claudio, who accused her Upon the error that you heard debated: But Margaret was in some fault for this, Although against her will, as it appears In the true course of all the question. ANTONIO Well, I am glad that all things sort so well. BENEDICK And so am I, being else by faith enforced To call young Claudio to a reckoning for it. LEONATO Well, daughter, and you gentle-women all, Withdraw into a chamber by yourselves, And when I send for you, come hither mask'd. [Exeunt Ladies] The prince and Claudio promised by this hour To visit me. You know your office, brother: You must be father to your brother's daughter And give her to young Claudio. ANTONIO Which I will do with confirm'd countenance. BENEDICK Friar, I must entreat your pains, I think. FRIAR FRANCIS To do what, signior? BENEDICK To bind me, or undo me; one of them. Signior Leonato, truth it is, good signior, Your niece regards me with an eye of favour. LEONATO That eye my daughter lent her: 'tis most true. BENEDICK And I do with an eye of love requite her. LEONATO The sight whereof I think you had from me, From Claudio and the prince: but what's your will? BENEDICK Your answer, sir, is enigmatical: But, for my will, my will is your good will May stand with ours, this day to be conjoin'd In the state of honourable marriage: In which, good friar, I shall desire your help. LEONATO My heart is with your liking. FRIAR FRANCIS And my help. Here comes the prince and Claudio. [Enter DON PEDRO and CLAUDIO, and two or three others] DON PEDRO Good morrow to this fair assembly. LEONATO Good morrow, prince; good morrow, Claudio: We here attend you. Are you yet determined To-day to marry with my brother's daughter? CLAUDIO I'll hold my mind, were she an Ethiope. LEONATO Call her forth, brother; here's the friar ready. [Exit ANTONIO] DON PEDRO Good morrow, Benedick. Why, what's the matter, That you have such a February face, So full of frost, of storm and cloudiness? CLAUDIO I think he thinks upon the savage bull. Tush, fear not, man; we'll tip thy horns with gold And all Europa shall rejoice at thee, As once Europa did at lusty Jove, When he would play the noble beast in love. BENEDICK Bull Jove, sir, had an amiable low; And some such strange bull leap'd your father's cow, And got a calf in that same noble feat Much like to you, for you have just his bleat. CLAUDIO For this I owe you: here comes other reckonings. [Re-enter ANTONIO, with the Ladies masked] Which is the lady I must seize upon? ANTONIO This same is she, and I do give you her. CLAUDIO Why, then she's mine. Sweet, let me see your face. LEONATO No, that you shall not, till you take her hand Before this friar and swear to marry her. CLAUDIO Give me your hand: before this holy friar, I am your husband, if you like of me. HERO And when I lived, I was your other wife: [Unmasking] And when you loved, you were my other husband. CLAUDIO Another Hero! HERO Nothing certainer: One Hero died defiled, but I do live, And surely as I live, I am a maid. DON PEDRO The former Hero! Hero that is dead! LEONATO She died, my lord, but whiles her slander lived. FRIAR FRANCIS All this amazement can I qualify: When after that the holy rites are ended, I'll tell you largely of fair Hero's death: Meantime let wonder seem familiar, And to the chapel let us presently. BENEDICK Soft and fair, friar. Which is Beatrice? BEATRICE [Unmasking] I answer to that name. What is your will? BENEDICK Do not you love me? BEATRICE Why, no; no more than reason. BENEDICK Why, then your uncle and the prince and Claudio Have been deceived; they swore you did. BEATRICE Do not you love me? BENEDICK Troth, no; no more than reason. BEATRICE Why, then my cousin Margaret and Ursula Are much deceived; for they did swear you did. BENEDICK They swore that you were almost sick for me. BEATRICE They swore that you were well-nigh dead for me. BENEDICK 'Tis no such matter. Then you do not love me? BEATRICE No, truly, but in friendly recompense. LEONATO Come, cousin, I am sure you love the gentleman. CLAUDIO And I'll be sworn upon't that he loves her; For here's a paper written in his hand, A halting sonnet of his own pure brain, Fashion'd to Beatrice. HERO And here's another Writ in my cousin's hand, stolen from her pocket, Containing her affection unto Benedick. BENEDICK A miracle! here's our own hands against our hearts. Come, I will have thee; but, by this light, I take thee for pity. BEATRICE I would not deny you; but, by this good day, I yield upon great persuasion; and partly to save your life, for I was told you were in a consumption. BENEDICK Peace! I will stop your mouth. [Kissing her] DON PEDRO How dost thou, Benedick, the married man? BENEDICK I'll tell thee what, prince; a college of wit-crackers cannot flout me out of my humour. Dost thou think I care for a satire or an epigram? No: if a man will be beaten with brains, a' shall wear nothing handsome about him. In brief, since I do purpose to marry, I will think nothing to any purpose that the world can say against it; and therefore never flout at me for what I have said against it; for man is a giddy thing, and this is my conclusion. For thy part, Claudio, I did think to have beaten thee, but in that thou art like to be my kinsman, live unbruised and love my cousin. CLAUDIO I had well hoped thou wouldst have denied Beatrice, that I might have cudgelled thee out of thy single life, to make thee a double-dealer; which, out of question, thou wilt be, if my cousin do not look exceedingly narrowly to thee. BENEDICK Come, come, we are friends: let's have a dance ere we are married, that we may lighten our own hearts and our wives' heels. LEONATO We'll have dancing afterward. BENEDICK First, of my word; therefore play, music. Prince, thou art sad; get thee a wife, get thee a wife: there is no staff more reverend than one tipped with horn. [Enter a Messenger] Messenger My lord, your brother John is ta'en in flight, And brought with armed men back to Messina. BENEDICK Think not on him till to-morrow: I'll devise thee brave punishments for him. Strike up, pipers. [Dance] [Exeunt] PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE DRAMATIS PERSONAE ANTIOCHUS king of Antioch. PERICLES prince of Tyre. HELICANUS | | two lords of Tyre. ESCANES | SIMONIDES king of Pentapolis. CLEON governor of Tarsus. LYSIMACHUS governor of Mytilene. CERIMON a lord of Ephesus. THALIARD a lord of Antioch. PHILEMON servant to Cerimon. LEONINE servant to Dionyza. Marshal. (Marshal:) A Pandar. (Pandar:) BOULT his servant. The Daughter of Antiochus. (Daughter:) DIONYZA wife to Cleon. THAISA daughter to Simonides. MARINA daughter to Pericles and Thaisa. LYCHORIDA nurse to Marina. A Bawd. (Bawd:) Lords, Knights, Gentlemen, Sailors, Pirates, Fishermen, and Messengers. (Lord:) (First Lord:) (Second Lord:) (Third Lord:) (First Knight:) (Second Knight:) (Third Knight:) (First Gentleman:) (Second Gentleman:) (First Sailor:) (Second Sailor:) (First Pirate:) (Second Pirate:) (Third Pirate:) (First Fisherman:) (Second Fisherman:) (Third Fisherman:) (Messenger:) DIANA: GOWER as Chorus. SCENE Dispersedly in various countries. PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE ACT I [Enter GOWER] [Before the palace of Antioch] To sing a song that old was sung, From ashes ancient Gower is come; Assuming man's infirmities, To glad your ear, and please your eyes. It hath been sung at festivals, On ember-eves and holy-ales; And lords and ladies in their lives Have read it for restoratives: The purchase is to make men glorious; Et bonum quo antiquius, eo melius. If you, born in these latter times, When wit's more ripe, accept my rhymes. And that to hear an old man sing May to your wishes pleasure bring I life would wish, and that I might Waste it for you, like taper-light. This Antioch, then, Antiochus the Great Built up, this city, for his chiefest seat: The fairest in all Syria, I tell you what mine authors say: This king unto him took a fere, Who died and left a female heir, So buxom, blithe, and full of face, As heaven had lent her all his grace; With whom the father liking took, And her to incest did provoke: Bad child; worse father! to entice his own To evil should be done by none: But custom what they did begin Was with long use account no sin. The beauty of this sinful dame Made many princes thither frame, To seek her as a bed-fellow, In marriage-pleasures play-fellow: Which to prevent he made a law, To keep her still, and men in awe, That whoso ask'd her for his wife, His riddle told not, lost his life: So for her many a wight did die, As yon grim looks do testify. What now ensues, to the judgment of your eye I give, my cause who best can justify. [Exit] PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE ACT I SCENE I Antioch. A room in the palace. [Enter ANTIOCHUS, Prince PERICLES, and followers] ANTIOCHUS Young prince of Tyre, you have at large received The danger of the task you undertake. PERICLES I have, Antiochus, and, with a soul Embolden'd with the glory of her praise, Think death no hazard in this enterprise. ANTIOCHUS Bring in our daughter, clothed like a bride, For the embracements even of Jove himself; At whose conception, till Lucina reign'd, Nature this dowry gave, to glad her presence, The senate-house of planets all did sit, To knit in her their best perfections. [Music. Enter the Daughter of ANTIOCHUS] PERICLES See where she comes, apparell'd like the spring, Graces her subjects, and her thoughts the king Of every virtue gives renown to men! Her face the book of praises, where is read Nothing but curious pleasures, as from thence Sorrow were ever razed and testy wrath Could never be her mild companion. You gods that made me man, and sway in love, That have inflamed desire in my breast To taste the fruit of yon celestial tree, Or die in the adventure, be my helps, As I am son and servant to your will, To compass such a boundless happiness! ANTIOCHUS Prince Pericles,-- PERICLES That would be son to great Antiochus. ANTIOCHUS Before thee stands this fair Hesperides, With golden fruit, but dangerous to be touch'd; For death-like dragons here affright thee hard: Her face, like heaven, enticeth thee to view Her countless glory, which desert must gain; And which, without desert, because thine eye Presumes to reach, all thy whole heap must die. Yon sometimes famous princes, like thyself, Drawn by report, adventurous by desire, Tell thee, with speechless tongues and semblance pale, That without covering, save yon field of stars, Here they stand martyrs, slain in Cupid's wars; And with dead cheeks advise thee to desist For going on death's net, whom none resist. PERICLES Antiochus, I thank thee, who hath taught My frail mortality to know itself, And by those fearful objects to prepare This body, like to them, to what I must; For death remember'd should be like a mirror, Who tells us life's but breath, to trust it error. I'll make my will then, and, as sick men do Who know the world, see heaven, but, feeling woe, Gripe not at earthly joys as erst they did; So I bequeath a happy peace to you And all good men, as every prince should do; My riches to the earth from whence they came; But my unspotted fire of love to you. [To the Daughter of ANTIOCHUS] Thus ready for the way of life or death, I wait the sharpest blow, Antiochus. ANTIOCHUS Scorning advice, read the conclusion then: Which read and not expounded, 'tis decreed, As these before thee thou thyself shalt bleed. Daughter Of all say'd yet, mayst thou prove prosperous! Of all say'd yet, I wish thee happiness! PERICLES Like a bold champion, I assume the lists, Nor ask advice of any other thought But faithfulness and courage. [He reads the riddle] I am no viper, yet I feed On mother's flesh which did me breed. I sought a husband, in which labour I found that kindness in a father: He's father, son, and husband mild; I mother, wife, and yet his child. How they may be, and yet in two, As you will live, resolve it you. Sharp physic is the last: but, O you powers That give heaven countless eyes to view men's acts, Why cloud they not their sights perpetually, If this be true, which makes me pale to read it? Fair glass of light, I loved you, and could still, [Takes hold of the hand of the Daughter of ANTIOCHUS] Were not this glorious casket stored with ill: But I must tell you, now my thoughts revolt For he's no man on whom perfections wait That, knowing sin within, will touch the gate. You are a fair viol, and your sense the strings; Who, finger'd to make man his lawful music, Would draw heaven down, and all the gods, to hearken: But being play'd upon before your time, Hell only danceth at so harsh a chime. Good sooth, I care not for you. ANTIOCHUS Prince Pericles, touch not, upon thy life. For that's an article within our law, As dangerous as the rest. Your time's expired: Either expound now, or receive your sentence. PERICLES Great king, Few love to hear the sins they love to act; 'Twould braid yourself too near for me to tell it. Who has a book of all that monarchs do, He's more secure to keep it shut than shown: For vice repeated is like the wandering wind. Blows dust in other's eyes, to spread itself; And yet the end of all is bought thus dear, The breath is gone, and the sore eyes see clear: To stop the air would hurt them. The blind mole casts Copp'd hills towards heaven, to tell the earth is throng'd By man's oppression; and the poor worm doth die for't. Kings are earth's gods; in vice their law's their will; And if Jove stray, who dares say Jove doth ill? It is enough you know; and it is fit, What being more known grows worse, to smother it. All love the womb that their first being bred, Then give my tongue like leave to love my head. ANTIOCHUS [Aside] Heaven, that I had thy head! he has found the meaning: But I will gloze with him.--Young prince of Tyre, Though by the tenor of our strict edict, Your exposition misinterpreting, We might proceed to cancel of your days; Yet hope, succeeding from so fair a tree As your fair self, doth tune us otherwise: Forty days longer we do respite you; If by which time our secret be undone, This mercy shows we'll joy in such a son: And until then your entertain shall be As doth befit our honour and your worth. [Exeunt all but PERICLES] PERICLES How courtesy would seem to cover sin, When what is done is like an hypocrite, The which is good in nothing but in sight! If it be true that I interpret false, Then were it certain you were not so bad As with foul incest to abuse your soul; Where now you're both a father and a son, By your untimely claspings with your child, Which pleasure fits an husband, not a father; And she an eater of her mother's flesh, By the defiling of her parent's bed; And both like serpents are, who though they feed On sweetest flowers, yet they poison breed. Antioch, farewell! for wisdom sees, those men Blush not in actions blacker than the night, Will shun no course to keep them from the light. One sin, I know, another doth provoke; Murder's as near to lust as flame to smoke: Poison and treason are the hands of sin, Ay, and the targets, to put off the shame: Then, lest my lie be cropp'd to keep you clear, By flight I'll shun the danger which I fear. [Exit] [Re-enter ANTIOCHUS] ANTIOCHUS He hath found the meaning, for which we mean To have his head. He must not live to trumpet forth my infamy, Nor tell the world Antiochus doth sin In such a loathed manner; And therefore instantly this prince must die: For by his fall my honour must keep high. Who attends us there? [Enter THALIARD] THALIARD Doth your highness call? ANTIOCHUS Thaliard, You are of our chamber, and our mind partakes Her private actions to your secrecy; And for your faithfulness we will advance you. Thaliard, behold, here's poison, and here's gold; We hate the prince of Tyre, and thou must kill him: It fits thee not to ask the reason why, Because we bid it. Say, is it done? THALIARD My lord, 'Tis done. ANTIOCHUS Enough. [Enter a Messenger] Let your breath cool yourself, telling your haste. Messenger My lord, prince Pericles is fled. [Exit] ANTIOCHUS As thou Wilt live, fly after: and like an arrow shot From a well-experienced archer hits the mark His eye doth level at, so thou ne'er return Unless thou say 'Prince Pericles is dead.' THALIARD My lord, If I can get him within my pistol's length, I'll make him sure enough: so, farewell to your highness. ANTIOCHUS Thaliard, adieu! [Exit THALIARD] Till Pericles be dead, My heart can lend no succor to my head. [Exit] PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE ACT I SCENE II Tyre. A room in the palace. [Enter PERICLES] PERICLES [To Lords without] Let none disturb us.--Why should this change of thoughts, The sad companion, dull-eyed melancholy, Be my so used a guest as not an hour, In the day's glorious walk, or peaceful night, The tomb where grief should sleep, can breed me quiet? Here pleasures court mine eyes, and mine eyes shun them, And danger, which I fear'd, is at Antioch, Whose aim seems far too short to hit me here: Yet neither pleasure's art can joy my spirits, Nor yet the other's distance comfort me. Then it is thus: the passions of the mind, That have their first conception by mis-dread, Have after-nourishment and life by care; And what was first but fear what might be done, Grows elder now and cares it be not done. And so with me: the great Antiochus, 'Gainst whom I am too little to contend, Since he's so great can make his will his act, Will think me speaking, though I swear to silence; Nor boots it me to say I honour him. If he suspect I may dishonour him: And what may make him blush in being known, He'll stop the course by which it might be known; With hostile forces he'll o'erspread the land, And with the ostent of war will look so huge, Amazement shall drive courage from the state; Our men be vanquish'd ere they do resist, And subjects punish'd that ne'er thought offence: Which care of them, not pity of myself, Who am no more but as the tops of trees, Which fence the roots they grow by and defend them, Makes both my body pine and soul to languish, And punish that before that he would punish. [Enter HELICANUS, with other Lords] First Lord Joy and all comfort in your sacred breast! Second Lord And keep your mind, till you return to us, Peaceful and comfortable! HELICANUS Peace, peace, and give experience tongue. They do abuse the king that flatter him: For flattery is the bellows blows up sin; The thing which is flatter'd, but a spark, To which that blast gives heat and stronger glowing; Whereas reproof, obedient and in order, Fits kings, as they are men, for they may err. When Signior Sooth here does proclaim a peace, He flatters you, makes war upon your life. Prince, pardon me, or strike me, if you please; I cannot be much lower than my knees. PERICLES All leave us else; but let your cares o'erlook What shipping and what lading's in our haven, And then return to us. [Exeunt Lords] Helicanus, thou Hast moved us: what seest thou in our looks? HELICANUS An angry brow, dread lord. PERICLES If there be such a dart in princes' frowns, How durst thy tongue move anger to our face? HELICANUS How dare the plants look up to heaven, from whence They have their nourishment? PERICLES Thou know'st I have power To take thy life from thee. HELICANUS [Kneeling] I have ground the axe myself; Do you but strike the blow. PERICLES Rise, prithee, rise. Sit down: thou art no flatterer: I thank thee for it; and heaven forbid That kings should let their ears hear their faults hid! Fit counsellor and servant for a prince, Who by thy wisdom makest a prince thy servant, What wouldst thou have me do? HELICANUS To bear with patience Such griefs as you yourself do lay upon yourself. PERICLES Thou speak'st like a physician, Helicanus, That minister'st a potion unto me That thou wouldst tremble to receive thyself. Attend me, then: I went to Antioch, Where as thou know'st, against the face of death, I sought the purchase of a glorious beauty. From whence an issue I might propagate, Are arms to princes, and bring joys to subjects. Her face was to mine eye beyond all wonder; The rest--hark in thine ear--as black as incest: Which by my knowledge found, the sinful father Seem'd not to strike, but smooth: but thou know'st this, 'Tis time to fear when tyrants seem to kiss. Such fear so grew in me, I hither fled, Under the covering of a careful night, Who seem'd my good protector; and, being here, Bethought me what was past, what might succeed. I knew him tyrannous; and tyrants' fears Decrease not, but grow faster than the years: And should he doubt it, as no doubt he doth, That I should open to the listening air How many worthy princes' bloods were shed, To keep his bed of blackness unlaid ope, To lop that doubt, he'll fill this land with arms, And make pretence of wrong that I have done him: When all, for mine, if I may call offence, Must feel war's blow, who spares not innocence: Which love to all, of which thyself art one, Who now reprovest me for it,-- HELICANUS Alas, sir! PERICLES Drew sleep out of mine eyes, blood from my cheeks, Musings into my mind, with thousand doubts How I might stop this tempest ere it came; And finding little comfort to relieve them, I thought it princely charity to grieve them. HELICANUS Well, my lord, since you have given me leave to speak. Freely will I speak. Antiochus you fear, And justly too, I think, you fear the tyrant, Who either by public war or private treason Will take away your life. Therefore, my lord, go travel for a while, Till that his rage and anger be forgot, Or till the Destinies do cut his thread of life. Your rule direct to any; if to me. Day serves not light more faithful than I'll be. PERICLES I do not doubt thy faith; But should he wrong my liberties in my absence? HELICANUS We'll mingle our bloods together in the earth, From whence we had our being and our birth. PERICLES Tyre, I now look from thee then, and to Tarsus Intend my travel, where I'll hear from thee; And by whose letters I'll dispose myself. The care I had and have of subjects' good On thee I lay whose wisdom's strength can bear it. I'll take thy word for faith, not ask thine oath: Who shuns not to break one will sure crack both: But in our orbs we'll live so round and safe, That time of both this truth shall ne'er convince, Thou show'dst a subject's shine, I a true prince. [Exeunt] PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE ACT I SCENE III Tyre. An ante-chamber in the palace. [Enter THALIARD] THALIARD So, this is Tyre, and this the court. Here must I kill King Pericles; and if I do it not, I am sure to be hanged at home: 'tis dangerous. Well, I perceive he was a wise fellow, and had good discretion, that, being bid to ask what he would of the king, desired he might know none of his secrets: now do I see he had some reason for't; for if a king bid a man be a villain, he's bound by the indenture of his oath to be one! Hush! here come the lords of Tyre. [Enter HELICANUS and ESCANES, with other Lords of Tyre] HELICANUS You shall not need, my fellow peers of Tyre, Further to question me of your king's departure: His seal'd commission, left in trust with me, Doth speak sufficiently he's gone to travel. THALIARD [Aside] How! the king gone! HELICANUS If further yet you will be satisfied, Why, as it were unlicensed of your loves, He would depart, I'll give some light unto you. Being at Antioch-- THALIARD [Aside] What from Antioch? HELICANUS Royal Antiochus--on what cause I know not-- Took some displeasure at him; at least he judged so: And doubting lest that he had err'd or sinn'd, To show his sorrow, he'ld correct himself; So puts himself unto the shipman's toil, With whom each minute threatens life or death. THALIARD [Aside] Well, I perceive I shall not be hang'd now, although I would; But since he's gone, the king's seas must please: He 'scaped the land, to perish at the sea. I'll present myself. Peace to the lords of Tyre! HELICANUS Lord Thaliard from Antiochus is welcome. THALIARD From him I come With message unto princely Pericles; But since my landing I have understood Your lord has betook himself to unknown travels, My message must return from whence it came. HELICANUS We have no reason to desire it, Commended to our master, not to us: Yet, ere you shall depart, this we desire, As friends to Antioch, we may feast in Tyre. [Exeunt] PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE ACT I SCENE IV Tarsus. A room in the Governor's house. [Enter CLEON, the governor of Tarsus, with DIONYZA, and others] CLEON My Dionyza, shall we rest us here, And by relating tales of others' griefs, See if 'twill teach us to forget our own? DIONYZA That were to blow at fire in hope to quench it; For who digs hills because they do aspire Throws down one mountain to cast up a higher. O my distressed lord, even such our griefs are; Here they're but felt, and seen with mischief's eyes, But like to groves, being topp'd, they higher rise. CLEON O Dionyza, Who wanteth food, and will not say he wants it, Or can conceal his hunger till he famish? Our tongues and sorrows do sound deep Our woes into the air; our eyes do weep, Till tongues fetch breath that may proclaim them louder; That, if heaven slumber while their creatures want, They may awake their helps to comfort them. I'll then discourse our woes, felt several years, And wanting breath to speak help me with tears. DIONYZA I'll do my best, sir. CLEON This Tarsus, o'er which I have the government, A city on whom plenty held full hand, For riches strew'd herself even in the streets; Whose towers bore heads so high they kiss'd the clouds, And strangers ne'er beheld but wondered at; Whose men and dames so jetted and adorn'd, Like one another's glass to trim them by: Their tables were stored full, to glad the sight, And not so much to feed on as delight; All poverty was scorn'd, and pride so great, The name of help grew odious to repeat. DIONYZA O, 'tis too true. CLEON But see what heaven can do! By this our change, These mouths, who but of late, earth, sea, and air, Were all too little to content and please, Although they gave their creatures in abundance, As houses are defiled for want of use, They are now starved for want of exercise: Those palates who, not yet two summers younger, Must have inventions to delight the taste, Would now be glad of bread, and beg for it: Those mothers who, to nousle up their babes, Thought nought too curious, are ready now To eat those little darlings whom they loved. So sharp are hunger's teeth, that man and wife Draw lots who first shall die to lengthen life: Here stands a lord, and there a lady weeping; Here many sink, yet those which see them fall Have scarce strength left to give them burial. Is not this true? DIONYZA Our cheeks and hollow eyes do witness it. CLEON O, let those cities that of plenty's cup And her prosperities so largely taste, With their superfluous riots, hear these tears! The misery of Tarsus may be theirs. [Enter a Lord] Lord Where's the lord governor? CLEON Here. Speak out thy sorrows which thou bring'st in haste, For comfort is too far for us to expect. Lord We have descried, upon our neighbouring shore, A portly sail of ships make hitherward. CLEON I thought as much. One sorrow never comes but brings an heir, That may succeed as his inheritor; And so in ours: some neighbouring nation, Taking advantage of our misery, Hath stuff'd these hollow vessels with their power, To beat us down, the which are down already; And make a conquest of unhappy me, Whereas no glory's got to overcome. Lord That's the least fear; for, by the semblance Of their white flags display'd, they bring us peace, And come to us as favourers, not as foes. CLEON Thou speak'st like him's untutor'd to repeat: Who makes the fairest show means most deceit. But bring they what they will and what they can, What need we fear? The ground's the lowest, and we are half way there. Go tell their general we attend him here, To know for what he comes, and whence he comes, And what he craves. Lord I go, my lord. [Exit] CLEON Welcome is peace, if he on peace consist; If wars, we are unable to resist. [Enter PERICLES with Attendants] PERICLES Lord governor, for so we hear you are, Let not our ships and number of our men Be like a beacon fired to amaze your eyes. We have heard your miseries as far as Tyre, And seen the desolation of your streets: Nor come we to add sorrow to your tears, But to relieve them of their heavy load; And these our ships, you happily may think Are like the Trojan horse was stuff'd within With bloody veins, expecting overthrow, Are stored with corn to make your needy bread, And give them life whom hunger starved half dead. All The gods of Greece protect you! And we'll pray for you. PERICLES Arise, I pray you, rise: We do not look for reverence, but to love, And harbourage for ourself, our ships, and men. CLEON The which when any shall not gratify, Or pay you with unthankfulness in thought, Be it our wives, our children, or ourselves, The curse of heaven and men succeed their evils! Till when,--the which I hope shall ne'er be seen,-- Your grace is welcome to our town and us. PERICLES Which welcome we'll accept; feast here awhile, Until our stars that frown lend us a smile. [Exeunt] PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE ACT II [Enter GOWER] GOWER Here have you seen a mighty king His child, I wis, to incest bring; A better prince and benign lord, That will prove awful both in deed and word. Be quiet then as men should be, Till he hath pass'd necessity. I'll show you those in troubles reign, Losing a mite, a mountain gain. The good in conversation, To whom I give my benison, Is still at Tarsus, where each man Thinks all is writ he speken can; And, to remember what he does, Build his statue to make him glorious: But tidings to the contrary Are brought your eyes; what need speak I? DUMB SHOW. [Enter at one door PERICLES talking with CLEON; all the train with them. Enter at another door a Gentleman, with a letter to PERICLES; PERICLES shows the letter to CLEON; gives the Messenger a reward, and knights him. Exit PERICLES at one door, and CLEON at another] Good Helicane, that stay'd at home, Not to eat honey like a drone From others' labours; for though he strive To killen bad, keep good alive; And to fulfil his prince' desire, Sends word of all that haps in Tyre: How Thaliard came full bent with sin And had intent to murder him; And that in Tarsus was not best Longer for him to make his rest. He, doing so, put forth to seas, Where when men been, there's seldom ease; For now the wind begins to blow; Thunder above and deeps below Make such unquiet, that the ship Should house him safe is wreck'd and split; And he, good prince, having all lost, By waves from coast to coast is tost: All perishen of man, of pelf, Ne aught escapen but himself; Till fortune, tired with doing bad, Threw him ashore, to give him glad: And here he comes. What shall be next, Pardon old Gower,--this longs the text. [Exit] PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE ACT II SCENE I Pentapolis. An open place by the sea-side. [Enter PERICLES, wet] PERICLES Yet cease your ire, you angry stars of heaven! Wind, rain, and thunder, remember, earthly man Is but a substance that must yield to you; And I, as fits my nature, do obey you: Alas, the sea hath cast me on the rocks, Wash'd me from shore to shore, and left me breath Nothing to think on but ensuing death: Let it suffice the greatness of your powers To have bereft a prince of all his fortunes; And having thrown him from your watery grave, Here to have death in peace is all he'll crave. [Enter three FISHERMEN] First Fisherman What, ho, Pilch! Second Fisherman Ha, come and bring away the nets! First Fisherman What, Patch-breech, I say! Third Fisherman What say you, master? First Fisherman Look how thou stirrest now! come away, or I'll fetch thee with a wanion. Third Fisherman Faith, master, I am thinking of the poor men that were cast away before us even now. First Fisherman Alas, poor souls, it grieved my heart to hear what pitiful cries they made to us to help them, when, well-a-day, we could scarce help ourselves. Third Fisherman Nay, master, said not I as much when I saw the porpus how he bounced and tumbled? they say they're half fish, half flesh: a plague on them, they ne'er come but I look to be washed. Master, I marvel how the fishes live in the sea. First Fisherman Why, as men do a-land; the great ones eat up the little ones: I can compare our rich misers to nothing so fitly as to a whale; a' plays and tumbles, driving the poor fry before him, and at last devours them all at a mouthful: such whales have I heard on o' the land, who never leave gaping till they've swallowed the whole parish, church, steeple, bells, and all. PERICLES [Aside] A pretty moral. Third Fisherman But, master, if I had been the sexton, I would have been that day in the belfry. Second Fisherman Why, man? Third Fisherman Because he should have swallowed me too: and when I had been in his belly, I would have kept such a jangling of the bells, that he should never have left, till he cast bells, steeple, church, and parish up again. But if the good King Simonides were of my mind,-- PERICLES [Aside] Simonides! Third Fisherman We would purge the land of these drones, that rob the bee of her honey. PERICLES [Aside] How from the finny subject of the sea These fishers tell the infirmities of men; And from their watery empire recollect All that may men approve or men detect! Peace be at your labour, honest fishermen. Second Fisherman Honest! good fellow, what's that? If it be a day fits you, search out of the calendar, and nobody look after it. PERICLES May see the sea hath cast upon your coast. Second Fisherman What a drunken knave was the sea to cast thee in our way! PERICLES A man whom both the waters and the wind, In that vast tennis-court, have made the ball For them to play upon, entreats you pity him: He asks of you, that never used to beg. First Fisherman No, friend, cannot you beg? Here's them in our country Greece gets more with begging than we can do with working. Second Fisherman Canst thou catch any fishes, then? PERICLES I never practised it. Second Fisherman Nay, then thou wilt starve, sure; for here's nothing to be got now-a-days, unless thou canst fish for't. PERICLES What I have been I have forgot to know; But what I am, want teaches me to think on: A man throng'd up with cold: my veins are chill, And have no more of life than may suffice To give my tongue that heat to ask your help; Which if you shall refuse, when I am dead, For that I am a man, pray see me buried. First Fisherman Die quoth-a? Now gods forbid! I have a gown here; come, put it on; keep thee warm. Now, afore me, a handsome fellow! Come, thou shalt go home, and we'll have flesh for holidays, fish for fasting-days, and moreo'er puddings and flap-jacks, and thou shalt be welcome. PERICLES I thank you, sir. Second Fisherman Hark you, my friend; you said you could not beg. PERICLES I did but crave. Second Fisherman But crave! Then I'll turn craver too, and so I shall 'scape whipping. PERICLES Why, are all your beggars whipped, then? Second Fisherman O, not all, my friend, not all; for if all your beggars were whipped, I would wish no better office than to be beadle. But, master, I'll go draw up the net. [Exit with Third Fisherman] PERICLES [Aside] How well this honest mirth becomes their labour! First Fisherman Hark you, sir, do you know where ye are? PERICLES Not well. First Fisherman Why, I'll tell you: this is called Pentapolis, and our king the good Simonides. PERICLES The good King Simonides, do you call him. First Fisherman Ay, sir; and he deserves so to be called for his peaceable reign and good government. PERICLES He is a happy king, since he gains from his subjects the name of good by his government. How far is his court distant from this shore? First Fisherman Marry, sir, half a day's journey: and I'll tell you, he hath a fair daughter, and to-morrow is her birth-day; and there are princes and knights come from all parts of the world to just and tourney for her love. PERICLES Were my fortunes equal to my desires, I could wish to make one there. First Fisherman O, sir, things must be as they may; and what a man cannot get, he may lawfully deal for--his wife's soul. [Re-enter Second and Third Fishermen, drawing up a net] Second Fisherman Help, master, help! here's a fish hangs in the net, like a poor man's right in the law; 'twill hardly come out. Ha! bots on't, 'tis come at last, and 'tis turned to a rusty armour. PERICLES An armour, friends! I pray you, let me see it. Thanks, fortune, yet, that, after all my crosses, Thou givest me somewhat to repair myself; And though it was mine own, part of my heritage, Which my dead father did bequeath to me. With this strict charge, even as he left his life, 'Keep it, my Pericles; it hath been a shield Twixt me and death;'--and pointed to this brace;-- 'For that it saved me, keep it; in like necessity-- The which the gods protect thee from!--may defend thee.' It kept where I kept, I so dearly loved it; Till the rough seas, that spare not any man, Took it in rage, though calm'd have given't again: I thank thee for't: my shipwreck now's no ill, Since I have here my father's gift in's will. First Fisherman What mean you, sir? PERICLES To beg of you, kind friends, this coat of worth, For it was sometime target to a king; I know it by this mark. He loved me dearly, And for his sake I wish the having of it; And that you'ld guide me to your sovereign's court, Where with it I may appear a gentleman; And if that ever my low fortune's better, I'll pay your bounties; till then rest your debtor. First Fisherman Why, wilt thou tourney for the lady? PERICLES I'll show the virtue I have borne in arms. First Fisherman Why, do 'e take it, and the gods give thee good on't! Second Fisherman Ay, but hark you, my friend; 'twas we that made up this garment through the rough seams of the waters: there are certain condolements, certain vails. I hope, sir, if you thrive, you'll remember from whence you had it. PERICLES Believe 't, I will. By your furtherance I am clothed in steel; And, spite of all the rapture of the sea, This jewel holds his building on my arm: Unto thy value I will mount myself Upon a courser, whose delightful steps Shall make the gazer joy to see him tread. Only, my friend, I yet am unprovided Of a pair of bases. Second Fisherman We'll sure provide: thou shalt have my best gown to make thee a pair; and I'll bring thee to the court myself. PERICLES Then honour be but a goal to my will, This day I'll rise, or else add ill to ill. [Exeunt] PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE ACT II SCENE II The same. A public way or platform leading to the lists. A pavilion by the side of it for the reception of King, Princess, Lords, &c. [Enter SIMONIDES, THAISA, Lords, and Attendants] SIMONIDES Are the knights ready to begin the triumph? First Lord They are, my liege; And stay your coming to present themselves. SIMONIDES Return them, we are ready; and our daughter, In honour of whose birth these triumphs are, Sits here, like beauty's child, whom nature gat For men to see, and seeing wonder at. [Exit a Lord] THAISA It pleaseth you, my royal father, to express My commendations great, whose merit's less. SIMONIDES It's fit it should be so; for princes are A model which heaven makes like to itself: As jewels lose their glory if neglected, So princes their renowns if not respected. 'Tis now your honour, daughter, to explain The labour of each knight in his device. THAISA Which, to preserve mine honour, I'll perform. [Enter a Knight; he passes over, and his Squire presents his shield to the Princess] SIMONIDES Who is the first that doth prefer himself? THAISA A knight of Sparta, my renowned father; And the device he bears upon his shield Is a black Ethiope reaching at the sun The word, 'Lux tua vita mihi.' SIMONIDES He loves you well that holds his life of you. [The Second Knight passes over] Who is the second that presents himself? THAISA A prince of Macedon, my royal father; And the device he bears upon his shield Is an arm'd knight that's conquer'd by a lady; The motto thus, in Spanish, 'Piu por dulzura que por fuerza.' [The Third Knight passes over] SIMONIDES And what's the third? THAISA The third of Antioch; And his device, a wreath of chivalry; The word, 'Me pompae provexit apex.' [The Fourth Knight passes over] SIMONIDES What is the fourth? THAISA A burning torch that's turned upside down; The word, 'Quod me alit, me extinguit.' SIMONIDES Which shows that beauty hath his power and will, Which can as well inflame as it can kill. [The Fifth Knight passes over] THAISA The fifth, an hand environed with clouds, Holding out gold that's by the touchstone tried; The motto thus, 'Sic spectanda fides.' [The Sixth Knight, PERICLES, passes over] SIMONIDES And what's The sixth and last, the which the knight himself With such a graceful courtesy deliver'd? THAISA He seems to be a stranger; but his present is A wither'd branch, that's only green at top; The motto, 'In hac spe vivo.' SIMONIDES A pretty moral; From the dejected state wherein he is, He hopes by you his fortunes yet may flourish. First Lord He had need mean better than his outward show Can any way speak in his just commend; For by his rusty outside he appears To have practised more the whipstock than the lance. Second Lord He well may be a stranger, for he comes To an honour'd triumph strangely furnished. Third Lord And on set purpose let his armour rust Until this day, to scour it in the dust. SIMONIDES Opinion's but a fool, that makes us scan The outward habit by the inward man. But stay, the knights are coming: we will withdraw Into the gallery. [Exeunt] [Great shouts within and all cry 'The mean knight!'] PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE ACT II SCENE III The same. A hall of state: a banquet prepared. [Enter SIMONIDES, THAISA, Lords, Attendants, and Knights, from tilting] SIMONIDES Knights, To say you're welcome were superfluous. To place upon the volume of your deeds, As in a title-page, your worth in arms, Were more than you expect, or more than's fit, Since every worth in show commends itself. Prepare for mirth, for mirth becomes a feast: You are princes and my guests. THAISA But you, my knight and guest; To whom this wreath of victory I give, And crown you king of this day's happiness. PERICLES 'Tis more by fortune, lady, than by merit. SIMONIDES Call it by what you will, the day is yours; And here, I hope, is none that envies it. In framing an artist, art hath thus decreed, To make some good, but others to exceed; And you are her labour'd scholar. Come, queen o' the feast,-- For, daughter, so you are,--here take your place: Marshal the rest, as they deserve their grace. KNIGHTS We are honour'd much by good Simonides. SIMONIDES Your presence glads our days: honour we love; For who hates honour hates the gods above. Marshal Sir, yonder is your place. PERICLES Some other is more fit. First Knight Contend not, sir; for we are gentlemen That neither in our hearts nor outward eyes Envy the great nor do the low despise. PERICLES You are right courteous knights. SIMONIDES Sit, sir, sit. PERICLES By Jove, I wonder, that is king of thoughts, These cates resist me, she but thought upon. THAISA By Juno, that is queen of marriage, All viands that I eat do seem unsavoury. Wishing him my meat. Sure, he's a gallant gentleman. SIMONIDES He's but a country gentleman; Has done no more than other knights have done; Has broken a staff or so; so let it pass. THAISA To me he seems like diamond to glass. PERICLES Yon king's to me like to my father's picture, Which tells me in that glory once he was; Had princes sit, like stars, about his throne, And he the sun, for them to reverence; None that beheld him, but, like lesser lights, Did vail their crowns to his supremacy: Where now his son's like a glow-worm in the night, The which hath fire in darkness, none in light: Whereby I see that Time's the king of men, He's both their parent, and he is their grave, And gives them what he will, not what they crave. SIMONIDES What, are you merry, knights? Knights Who can be other in this royal presence? SIMONIDES Here, with a cup that's stored unto the brim,-- As you do love, fill to your mistress' lips,-- We drink this health to you. KNIGHTS We thank your grace. SIMONIDES Yet pause awhile: Yon knight doth sit too melancholy, As if the entertainment in our court Had not a show might countervail his worth. Note it not you, Thaisa? THAISA What is it To me, my father? SIMONIDES O, attend, my daughter: Princes in this should live like gods above, Who freely give to every one that comes To honour them: And princes not doing so are like to gnats, Which make a sound, but kill'd are wonder'd at. Therefore to make his entrance more sweet, Here, say we drink this standing-bowl of wine to him. THAISA Alas, my father, it befits not me Unto a stranger knight to be so bold: He may my proffer take for an offence, Since men take women's gifts for impudence. SIMONIDES How! Do as I bid you, or you'll move me else. THAISA [Aside] Now, by the gods, he could not please me better. SIMONIDES And furthermore tell him, we desire to know of him, Of whence he is, his name and parentage. THAISA The king my father, sir, has drunk to you. PERICLES I thank him. THAISA Wishing it so much blood unto your life. PERICLES I thank both him and you, and pledge him freely. THAISA And further he desires to know of you, Of whence you are, your name and parentage. PERICLES A gentleman of Tyre; my name, Pericles; My education been in arts and arms; Who, looking for adventures in the world, Was by the rough seas reft of ships and men, And after shipwreck driven upon this shore. THAISA He thanks your grace; names himself Pericles, A gentleman of Tyre, Who only by misfortune of the seas Bereft of ships and men, cast on this shore. SIMONIDES Now, by the gods, I pity his misfortune, And will awake him from his melancholy. Come, gentlemen, we sit too long on trifles, And waste the time, which looks for other revels. Even in your armours, as you are address'd, Will very well become a soldier's dance. I will not have excuse, with saying this Loud music is too harsh for ladies' heads, Since they love men in arms as well as beds. [The Knights dance] So, this was well ask'd,'twas so well perform'd. Come, sir; Here is a lady that wants breathing too: And I have heard, you knights of Tyre Are excellent in making ladies trip; And that their measures are as excellent. PERICLES In those that practise them they are, my lord. SIMONIDES O, that's as much as you would be denied Of your fair courtesy. [The Knights and Ladies dance] Unclasp, unclasp: Thanks, gentlemen, to all; all have done well. [To PERICLES] But you the best. Pages and lights, to conduct These knights unto their several lodgings! [To PERICLES] Yours, sir, We have given order to be next our own. PERICLES I am at your grace's pleasure. SIMONIDES Princes, it is too late to talk of love; And that's the mark I know you level at: Therefore each one betake him to his rest; To-morrow all for speeding do their best. [Exeunt] PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE ACT II SCENE IV Tyre. A room in the Governor's house. [Enter HELICANUS and ESCANES] HELICANUS No, Escanes, know this of me, Antiochus from incest lived not free: For which, the most high gods not minding longer To withhold the vengeance that they had in store, Due to this heinous capital offence, Even in the height and pride of all his glory, When he was seated in a chariot Of an inestimable value, and his daughter with him, A fire from heaven came and shrivell'd up Their bodies, even to loathing; for they so stunk, That all those eyes adored them ere their fall Scorn now their hand should give them burial. ESCANES 'Twas very strange. HELICANUS And yet but justice; for though This king were great, his greatness was no guard To bar heaven's shaft, but sin had his reward. ESCANES 'Tis very true. [Enter two or three Lords] First Lord See, not a man in private conference Or council has respect with him but he. Second Lord It shall no longer grieve without reproof. Third Lord And cursed be he that will not second it. First Lord Follow me, then. Lord Helicane, a word. HELICANUS With me? and welcome: happy day, my lords. First Lord Know that our griefs are risen to the top, And now at length they overflow their banks. HELICANUS Your griefs! for what? wrong not your prince you love. First Lord Wrong not yourself, then, noble Helicane; But if the prince do live, let us salute him, Or know what ground's made happy by his breath. If in the world he live, we'll seek him out; If in his grave he rest, we'll find him there; And be resolved he lives to govern us, Or dead, give's cause to mourn his funeral, And leave us to our free election. Second Lord Whose death indeed's the strongest in our censure: And knowing this kingdom is without a head,-- Like goodly buildings left without a roof Soon fall to ruin,--your noble self, That best know how to rule and how to reign, We thus submit unto,--our sovereign. All Live, noble Helicane! HELICANUS For honour's cause, forbear your suffrages: If that you love Prince Pericles, forbear. Take I your wish, I leap into the seas, Where's hourly trouble for a minute's ease. A twelvemonth longer, let me entreat you to Forbear the absence of your king: If in which time expired, he not return, I shall with aged patience bear your yoke. But if I cannot win you to this love, Go search like nobles, like noble subjects, And in your search spend your adventurous worth; Whom if you find, and win unto return, You shall like diamonds sit about his crown. First Lord To wisdom he's a fool that will not yield; And since Lord Helicane enjoineth us, We with our travels will endeavour us. HELICANUS Then you love us, we you, and we'll clasp hands: When peers thus knit, a kingdom ever stands. [Exeunt] PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE ACT II SCENE V Pentapolis. A room in the palace. [Enter SIMONIDES, reading a letter, at one door: the Knights meet him] First Knight Good morrow to the good Simonides. SIMONIDES Knights, from my daughter this I let you know, That for this twelvemonth she'll not undertake A married life. Her reason to herself is only known, Which yet from her by no means can I get. Second Knight May we not get access to her, my lord? SIMONIDES 'Faith, by no means; she has so strictly tied Her to her chamber, that 'tis impossible. One twelve moons more she'll wear Diana's livery; This by the eye of Cynthia hath she vow'd And on her virgin honour will not break it. Third Knight Loath to bid farewell, we take our leaves. [Exeunt Knights] SIMONIDES So, They are well dispatch'd; now to my daughter's letter: She tells me here, she'd wed the stranger knight, Or never more to view nor day nor light. 'Tis well, mistress; your choice agrees with mine; I like that well: nay, how absolute she's in't, Not minding whether I dislike or no! Well, I do commend her choice; And will no longer have it be delay'd. Soft! here he comes: I must dissemble it. [Enter PERICLES] PERICLES All fortune to the good Simonides! SIMONIDES To you as much, sir! I am beholding to you For your sweet music this last night: I do Protest my ears were never better fed With such delightful pleasing harmony. PERICLES It is your grace's pleasure to commend; Not my desert. SIMONIDES Sir, you are music's master. PERICLES The worst of all her scholars, my good lord. SIMONIDES Let me ask you one thing: What do you think of my daughter, sir? PERICLES A most virtuous princess. SIMONIDES And she is fair too, is she not? PERICLES As a fair day in summer, wondrous fair. SIMONIDES Sir, my daughter thinks very well of you; Ay, so well, that you must be her master, And she will be your scholar: therefore look to it. PERICLES I am unworthy for her schoolmaster. SIMONIDES She thinks not so; peruse this writing else. PERICLES [Aside] What's here? A letter, that she loves the knight of Tyre! 'Tis the king's subtlety to have my life. O, seek not to entrap me, gracious lord, A stranger and distressed gentleman, That never aim'd so high to love your daughter, But bent all offices to honour her. SIMONIDES Thou hast bewitch'd my daughter, and thou art A villain. PERICLES By the gods, I have not: Never did thought of mine levy offence; Nor never did my actions yet commence A deed might gain her love or your displeasure. SIMONIDES Traitor, thou liest. PERICLES Traitor! SIMONIDES Ay, traitor. PERICLES Even in his throat--unless it be the king-- That calls me traitor, I return the lie. SIMONIDES [Aside] Now, by the gods, I do applaud his courage. PERICLES My actions are as noble as my thoughts, That never relish'd of a base descent. I came unto your court for honour's cause, And not to be a rebel to her state; And he that otherwise accounts of me, This sword shall prove he's honour's enemy. SIMONIDES No? Here comes my daughter, she can witness it. [Enter THAISA] PERICLES Then, as you are as virtuous as fair, Resolve your angry father, if my tongue Did ere solicit, or my hand subscribe To any syllable that made love to you. THAISA Why, sir, say if you had, Who takes offence at that would make me glad? SIMONIDES Yea, mistress, are you so peremptory? [Aside] I am glad on't with all my heart.-- I'll tame you; I'll bring you in subjection. Will you, not having my consent, Bestow your love and your affections Upon a stranger? [Aside] who, for aught I know, May be, nor can I think the contrary, As great in blood as I myself.-- Therefore hear you, mistress; either frame Your will to mine,--and you, sir, hear you, Either be ruled by me, or I will make you-- Man and wife: Nay, come, your hands and lips must seal it too: And being join'd, I'll thus your hopes destroy; And for a further grief,--God give you joy!-- What, are you both pleased? THAISA Yes, if you love me, sir. PERICLES Even as my life, or blood that fosters it. SIMONIDES What, are you both agreed? BOTH Yes, if it please your majesty. SIMONIDES It pleaseth me so well, that I will see you wed; And then with what haste you can get you to bed. [Exeunt] PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE ACT III [Enter GOWER] GOWER Now sleep y-slaked hath the rout; No din but snores the house about, Made louder by the o'er-fed breast Of this most pompous marriage-feast. The cat, with eyne of burning coal, Now crouches fore the mouse's hole; And crickets sing at the oven's mouth, E'er the blither for their drouth. Hymen hath brought the bride to bed. Where, by the loss of maidenhead, A babe is moulded. Be attent, And time that is so briefly spent With your fine fancies quaintly eche: What's dumb in show I'll plain with speech. DUMB SHOW. [Enter, PERICLES and SIMONIDES at one door, with Attendants; a Messenger meets them, kneels, and gives PERICLES a letter: PERICLES shows it SIMONIDES; the Lords kneel to him. Then enter THAISA with child, with LYCHORIDA a nurse. The KING shows her the letter; she rejoices: she and PERICLES takes leave of her father, and depart with LYCHORIDA and their Attendants. Then exeunt SIMONIDES and the rest] By many a dern and painful perch Of Pericles the careful search, By the four opposing coigns Which the world together joins, Is made with all due diligence That horse and sail and high expense Can stead the quest. At last from Tyre, Fame answering the most strange inquire, To the court of King Simonides Are letters brought, the tenor these: Antiochus and his daughter dead; The men of Tyrus on the head Of Helicanus would set on The crown of Tyre, but he will none: The mutiny he there hastes t' oppress; Says to 'em, if King Pericles Come not home in twice six moons, He, obedient to their dooms, Will take the crown. The sum of this, Brought hither to Pentapolis, Y-ravished the regions round, And every one with claps can sound, 'Our heir-apparent is a king! Who dream'd, who thought of such a thing?' Brief, he must hence depart to Tyre: His queen with child makes her desire-- Which who shall cross?--along to go: Omit we all their dole and woe: Lychorida, her nurse, she takes, And so to sea. Their vessel shakes On Neptune's billow; half the flood Hath their keel cut: but fortune's mood Varies again; the grisly north Disgorges such a tempest forth, That, as a duck for life that dives, So up and down the poor ship drives: The lady shrieks, and well-a-near Does fall in travail with her fear: And what ensues in this fell storm Shall for itself itself perform. I nill relate, action may Conveniently the rest convey; Which might not what by me is told. In your imagination hold This stage the ship, upon whose deck The sea-tost Pericles appears to speak. [Exit] PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE ACT III SCENE I: [Enter PERICLES, on shipboard] PERICLES Thou god of this great vast, rebuke these surges, Which wash both heaven and hell; and thou, that hast Upon the winds command, bind them in brass, Having call'd them from the deep! O, still Thy deafening, dreadful thunders; gently quench Thy nimble, sulphurous flashes! O, how, Lychorida, How does my queen? Thou stormest venomously; Wilt thou spit all thyself? The seaman's whistle Is as a whisper in the ears of death, Unheard. Lychorida!--Lucina, O Divinest patroness, and midwife gentle To those that cry by night, convey thy deity Aboard our dancing boat; make swift the pangs Of my queen's travails! [Enter LYCHORIDA, with an Infant] Now, Lychorida! LYCHORIDA Here is a thing too young for such a place, Who, if it had conceit, would die, as I Am like to do: take in your arms this piece Of your dead queen. PERICLES How, how, Lychorida! LYCHORIDA Patience, good sir; do not assist the storm. Here's all that is left living of your queen, A little daughter: for the sake of it, Be manly, and take comfort. PERICLES O you gods! Why do you make us love your goodly gifts, And snatch them straight away? We here below Recall not what we give, and therein may Use honour with you. LYCHORIDA Patience, good sir, Even for this charge. PERICLES Now, mild may be thy life! For a more blustrous birth had never babe: Quiet and gentle thy conditions! for Thou art the rudeliest welcome to this world That ever was prince's child. Happy what follows! Thou hast as chiding a nativity As fire, air, water, earth, and heaven can make, To herald thee from the womb: even at the first Thy loss is more than can thy portage quit, With all thou canst find here. Now, the good gods Throw their best eyes upon't! [Enter two Sailors] First Sailor What courage, sir? God save you! PERICLES Courage enough: I do not fear the flaw; It hath done to me the worst. Yet, for the love Of this poor infant, this fresh-new sea-farer, I would it would be quiet. First Sailor Slack the bolins there! Thou wilt not, wilt thou? Blow, and split thyself. Second Sailor But sea-room, an the brine and cloudy billow kiss the moon, I care not. First Sailor Sir, your queen must overboard: the sea works high, the wind is loud, and will not lie till the ship be cleared of the dead. PERICLES That's your superstition. First Sailor Pardon us, sir; with us at sea it hath been still observed: and we are strong in custom. Therefore briefly yield her; for she must overboard straight. PERICLES As you think meet. Most wretched queen! LYCHORIDA Here she lies, sir. PERICLES A terrible childbed hast thou had, my dear; No light, no fire: the unfriendly elements Forgot thee utterly: nor have I time To give thee hallow'd to thy grave, but straight Must cast thee, scarcely coffin'd, in the ooze; Where, for a monument upon thy bones, And e'er-remaining lamps, the belching whale And humming water must o'erwhelm thy corpse, Lying with simple shells. O Lychorida, Bid Nestor bring me spices, ink and paper, My casket and my jewels; and bid Nicander Bring me the satin coffer: lay the babe Upon the pillow: hie thee, whiles I say A priestly farewell to her: suddenly, woman. [Exit LYCHORIDA] Second Sailor Sir, we have a chest beneath the hatches, caulked and bitumed ready. PERICLES I thank thee. Mariner, say what coast is this? Second Sailor We are near Tarsus. PERICLES Thither, gentle mariner. Alter thy course for Tyre. When canst thou reach it? Second Sailor By break of day, if the wind cease. PERICLES O, make for Tarsus! There will I visit Cleon, for the babe Cannot hold out to Tyrus: there I'll leave it At careful nursing. Go thy ways, good mariner: I'll bring the body presently. [Exeunt] PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE ACT III SCENE II Ephesus. A room in CERIMON's house. [Enter CERIMON, with a Servant, and some Persons who have been shipwrecked] CERIMON Philemon, ho! [Enter PHILEMON] PHILEMON Doth my lord call? CERIMON Get fire and meat for these poor men: 'T has been a turbulent and stormy night. Servant I have been in many; but such a night as this, Till now, I ne'er endured. CERIMON Your master will be dead ere you return; There's nothing can be minister'd to nature That can recover him. [To PHILEMON] Give this to the 'pothecary, And tell me how it works. [Exeunt all but CERIMON] [Enter two Gentlemen] First Gentleman Good morrow. Second Gentleman Good morrow to your lordship. CERIMON Gentlemen, Why do you stir so early? First Gentleman Sir, Our lodgings, standing bleak upon the sea, Shook as the earth did quake; The very principals did seem to rend, And all-to topple: pure surprise and fear Made me to quit the house. Second Gentleman That is the cause we trouble you so early; 'Tis not our husbandry. CERIMON O, you say well. First Gentleman But I much marvel that your lordship, having Rich tire about you, should at these early hours Shake off the golden slumber of repose. 'Tis most strange, Nature should be so conversant with pain, Being thereto not compell'd. CERIMON I hold it ever, Virtue and cunning were endowments greater Than nobleness and riches: careless heirs May the two latter darken and expend; But immortality attends the former. Making a man a god. 'Tis known, I ever Have studied physic, through which secret art, By turning o'er authorities, I have, Together with my practise, made familiar To me and to my aid the blest infusions That dwell in vegetives, in metals, stones; And I can speak of the disturbances That nature works, and of her cures; which doth give me A more content in course of true delight Than to be thirsty after tottering honour, Or tie my treasure up in silken bags, To please the fool and death. Second Gentleman Your honour has through Ephesus pour'd forth Your charity, and hundreds call themselves Your creatures, who by you have been restored: And not your knowledge, your personal pain, but even Your purse, still open, hath built Lord Cerimon Such strong renown as time shall ne'er decay. [Enter two or three Servants with a chest] First Servant So; lift there. CERIMON What is that? First Servant Sir, even now Did the sea toss upon our shore this chest: 'Tis of some wreck. CERIMON Set 't down, let's look upon't. Second Gentleman 'Tis like a coffin, sir. CERIMON Whate'er it be, 'Tis wondrous heavy. Wrench it open straight: If the sea's stomach be o'ercharged with gold, 'Tis a good constraint of fortune it belches upon us. Second Gentleman 'Tis so, my lord. CERIMON How close 'tis caulk'd and bitumed! Did the sea cast it up? First Servant I never saw so huge a billow, sir, As toss'd it upon shore. CERIMON Wrench it open; Soft! it smells most sweetly in my sense. Second Gentleman A delicate odour. CERIMON As ever hit my nostril. So, up with it. O you most potent gods! what's here? a corse! First Gentleman Most strange! CERIMON Shrouded in cloth of state; balm'd and entreasured With full bags of spices! A passport too! Apollo, perfect me in the characters! [Reads from a scroll] 'Here I give to understand, If e'er this coffin drive a-land, I, King Pericles, have lost This queen, worth all our mundane cost. Who finds her, give her burying; She was the daughter of a king: Besides this treasure for a fee, The gods requite his charity!' If thou livest, Pericles, thou hast a heart That even cracks for woe! This chanced tonight. Second Gentleman Most likely, sir. CERIMON Nay, certainly to-night; For look how fresh she looks! They were too rough That threw her in the sea. Make a fire within: Fetch hither all my boxes in my closet. [Exit a Servant] Death may usurp on nature many hours, And yet the fire of life kindle again The o'erpress'd spirits. I heard of an Egyptian That had nine hours lien dead, Who was by good appliance recovered. [Re-enter a Servant, with boxes, napkins, and fire] Well said, well said; the fire and cloths. The rough and woeful music that we have, Cause it to sound, beseech you. The viol once more: how thou stirr'st, thou block! The music there!--I pray you, give her air. Gentlemen. This queen will live: nature awakes; a warmth Breathes out of her: she hath not been entranced Above five hours: see how she gins to blow Into life's flower again! First Gentleman The heavens, Through you, increase our wonder and set up Your fame forever. CERIMON She is alive; behold, Her eyelids, cases to those heavenly jewels Which Pericles hath lost, Begin to part their fringes of bright gold; The diamonds of a most praised water Do appear, to make the world twice rich. Live, And make us weep to hear your fate, fair creature, Rare as you seem to be. [She moves] THAISA O dear Diana, Where am I? Where's my lord? What world is this? Second Gentleman Is not this strange? First Gentleman Most rare. CERIMON Hush, my gentle neighbours! Lend me your hands; to the next chamber bear her. Get linen: now this matter must be look'd to, For her relapse is mortal. Come, come; And AEsculapius guide us! [Exeunt, carrying her away] PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE ACT III SCENE III Tarsus. A room in CLEON's house. [Enter PERICLES, CLEON, DIONYZA, and LYCHORIDA with MARINA in her arms] PERICLES Most honour'd Cleon, I must needs be gone; My twelve months are expired, and Tyrus stands In a litigious peace. You, and your lady, Take from my heart all thankfulness! The gods Make up the rest upon you! CLEON Your shafts of fortune, though they hurt you mortally, Yet glance full wanderingly on us. DIONYZA O your sweet queen! That the strict fates had pleased you had brought her hither, To have bless'd mine eyes with her! PERICLES We cannot but obey The powers above us. Could I rage and roar As doth the sea she lies in, yet the end Must be as 'tis. My gentle babe Marina, whom, For she was born at sea, I have named so, here I charge your charity withal, leaving her The infant of your care; beseeching you To give her princely training, that she may be Manner'd as she is born. CLEON Fear not, my lord, but think Your grace, that fed my country with your corn, For which the people's prayers still fall upon you, Must in your child be thought on. If neglection Should therein make me vile, the common body, By you relieved, would force me to my duty: But if to that my nature need a spur, The gods revenge it upon me and mine, To the end of generation! PERICLES I believe you; Your honour and your goodness teach me to't, Without your vows. Till she be married, madam, By bright Diana, whom we honour, all Unscissor'd shall this hair of mine remain, Though I show ill in't. So I take my leave. Good madam, make me blessed in your care In bringing up my child. DIONYZA I have one myself, Who shall not be more dear to my respect Than yours, my lord. PERICLES Madam, my thanks and prayers. CLEON We'll bring your grace e'en to the edge o' the shore, Then give you up to the mask'd Neptune and The gentlest winds of heaven. PERICLES I will embrace Your offer. Come, dearest madam. O, no tears, Lychorida, no tears: Look to your little mistress, on whose grace You may depend hereafter. Come, my lord. [Exeunt] PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE ACT III SCENE IV Ephesus. A room in CERIMON's house. [Enter CERIMON and THAISA] CERIMON Madam, this letter, and some certain jewels, Lay with you in your coffer: which are now At your command. Know you the character? THAISA It is my lord's. That I was shipp'd at sea, I well remember, Even on my eaning time; but whether there Deliver'd, by the holy gods, I cannot rightly say. But since King Pericles, My wedded lord, I ne'er shall see again, A vestal livery will I take me to, And never more have joy. CERIMON Madam, if this you purpose as ye speak, Diana's temple is not distant far, Where you may abide till your date expire. Moreover, if you please, a niece of mine Shall there attend you. THAISA My recompense is thanks, that's all; Yet my good will is great, though the gift small. [Exeunt] PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE ACT IV [Enter GOWER] GOWER Imagine Pericles arrived at Tyre, Welcomed and settled to his own desire. His woeful queen we leave at Ephesus, Unto Diana there a votaress. Now to Marina bend your mind, Whom our fast-growing scene must find At Tarsus, and by Cleon train'd In music, letters; who hath gain'd Of education all the grace, Which makes her both the heart and place Of general wonder. But, alack, That monster envy, oft the wrack Of earned praise, Marina's life Seeks to take off by treason's knife. And in this kind hath our Cleon One daughter, and a wench full grown, Even ripe for marriage-rite; this maid Hight Philoten: and it is said For certain in our story, she Would ever with Marina be: Be't when she weaved the sleided silk With fingers long, small, white as milk; Or when she would with sharp needle wound The cambric, which she made more sound By hurting it; or when to the lute She sung, and made the night-bird mute, That still records with moan; or when She would with rich and constant pen Vail to her mistress Dian; still This Philoten contends in skill With absolute Marina: so With the dove of Paphos might the crow Vie feathers white. Marina gets All praises, which are paid as debts, And not as given. This so darks In Philoten all graceful marks, That Cleon's wife, with envy rare, A present murderer does prepare For good Marina, that her daughter Might stand peerless by this slaughter. The sooner her vile thoughts to stead, Lychorida, our nurse, is dead: And cursed Dionyza hath The pregnant instrument of wrath Prest for this blow. The unborn event I do commend to your content: Only I carry winged time Post on the lame feet of my rhyme; Which never could I so convey, Unless your thoughts went on my way. Dionyza does appear, With Leonine, a murderer. [Exit] PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE ACT IV SCENE I Tarsus. An open place near the sea-shore. [Enter DIONYZA and LEONINE] DIONYZA Thy oath remember; thou hast sworn to do't: 'Tis but a blow, which never shall be known. Thou canst not do a thing in the world so soon, To yield thee so much profit. Let not conscience, Which is but cold, inflaming love i' thy bosom, Inflame too nicely; nor let pity, which Even women have cast off, melt thee, but be A soldier to thy purpose. LEONINE I will do't; but yet she is a goodly creature. DIONYZA The fitter, then, the gods should have her. Here she comes weeping for her only mistress' death. Thou art resolved? LEONINE I am resolved. [Enter MARINA, with a basket of flowers] MARINA No, I will rob Tellus of her weed, To strew thy green with flowers: the yellows, blues, The purple violets, and marigolds, Shall as a carpet hang upon thy grave, While summer-days do last. Ay me! poor maid, Born in a tempest, when my mother died, This world to me is like a lasting storm, Whirring me from my friends. DIONYZA How now, Marina! why do you keep alone? How chance my daughter is not with you? Do not Consume your blood with sorrowing: you have A nurse of me. Lord, how your favour's changed With this unprofitable woe! Come, give me your flowers, ere the sea mar it. Walk with Leonine; the air is quick there, And it pierces and sharpens the stomach. Come, Leonine, take her by the arm, walk with her. MARINA No, I pray you; I'll not bereave you of your servant. DIONYZA Come, come; I love the king your father, and yourself, With more than foreign heart. We every day Expect him here: when he shall come and find Our paragon to all reports thus blasted, He will repent the breadth of his great voyage; Blame both my lord and me, that we have taken No care to your best courses. Go, I pray you, Walk, and be cheerful once again; reserve That excellent complexion, which did steal The eyes of young and old. Care not for me I can go home alone. MARINA Well, I will go; But yet I have no desire to it. DIONYZA Come, come, I know 'tis good for you. Walk half an hour, Leonine, at the least: Remember what I have said. LEONINE I warrant you, madam. DIONYZA I'll leave you, my sweet lady, for a while: Pray, walk softly, do not heat your blood: What! I must have a care of you. MARINA My thanks, sweet madam. [Exit DIONYZA] Is this wind westerly that blows? LEONINE South-west. MARINA When I was born, the wind was north. LEONINE Was't so? MARINA My father, as nurse said, did never fear, But cried 'Good seaman!' to the sailors, galling His kingly hands, haling ropes; And, clasping to the mast, endured a sea That almost burst the deck. LEONINE When was this? MARINA When I was born: Never was waves nor wind more violent; And from the ladder-tackle washes off A canvas-climber. 'Ha!' says one, 'wilt out?' And with a dropping industry they skip From stem to stern: the boatswain whistles, and The master calls, and trebles their confusion. LEONINE Come, say your prayers. MARINA What mean you? LEONINE If you require a little space for prayer, I grant it: pray; but be not tedious, For the gods are quick of ear, and I am sworn To do my work with haste. MARINA Why will you kill me? LEONINE To satisfy my lady. MARINA Why would she have me kill'd? Now, as I can remember, by my troth, I never did her hurt in all my life: I never spake bad word, nor did ill turn To any living creature: believe me, la, I never kill'd a mouse, nor hurt a fly: I trod upon a worm against my will, But I wept for it. How have I offended, Wherein my death might yield her any profit, Or my life imply her any danger? LEONINE My commission Is not to reason of the deed, but do it. MARINA You will not do't for all the world, I hope. You are well favour'd, and your looks foreshow You have a gentle heart. I saw you lately, When you caught hurt in parting two that fought: Good sooth, it show'd well in you: do so now: Your lady seeks my life; come you between, And save poor me, the weaker. LEONINE I am sworn, And will dispatch. [He seizes her] [Enter Pirates] First Pirate Hold, villain! [LEONINE runs away] Second Pirate A prize! a prize! Third Pirate Half-part, mates, half-part. Come, let's have her aboard suddenly. [Exeunt Pirates with MARINA] [Re-enter LEONINE] LEONINE These roguing thieves serve the great pirate Valdes; And they have seized Marina. Let her go: There's no hope she will return. I'll swear she's dead, And thrown into the sea. But I'll see further: Perhaps they will but please themselves upon her, Not carry her aboard. If she remain, Whom they have ravish'd must by me be slain. [Exit] PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE ACT IV SCENE II Mytilene. A room in a brothel. [Enter Pandar, Bawd, and BOULT] Pandar Boult! BOULT Sir? Pandar Search the market narrowly; Mytilene is full of gallants. We lost too much money this mart by being too wenchless. Bawd We were never so much out of creatures. We have but poor three, and they can do no more than they can do; and they with continual action are even as good as rotten. Pandar Therefore let's have fresh ones, whate'er we pay for them. If there be not a conscience to be used in every trade, we shall never prosper. Bawd Thou sayest true: 'tis not our bringing up of poor bastards,--as, I think, I have brought up some eleven-- BOULT Ay, to eleven; and brought them down again. But shall I search the market? Bawd What else, man? The stuff we have, a strong wind will blow it to pieces, they are so pitifully sodden. Pandar Thou sayest true; they're too unwholesome, o' conscience. The poor Transylvanian is dead, that lay with the little baggage. BOULT Ay, she quickly pooped him; she made him roast-meat for worms. But I'll go search the market. [Exit] Pandar Three or four thousand chequins were as pretty a proportion to live quietly, and so give over. Bawd Why to give over, I pray you? is it a shame to get when we are old? Pandar O, our credit comes not in like the commodity, nor the commodity wages not with the danger: therefore, if in our youths we could pick up some pretty estate, 'twere not amiss to keep our door hatched. Besides, the sore terms we stand upon with the gods will be strong with us for giving over. Bawd Come, other sorts offend as well as we. Pandar As well as we! ay, and better too; we offend worse. Neither is our profession any trade; it's no calling. But here comes Boult. [Re-enter BOULT, with the Pirates and MARINA] BOULT [To MARINA] Come your ways. My masters, you say she's a virgin? First Pirate O, sir, we doubt it not. BOULT Master, I have gone through for this piece, you see: if you like her, so; if not, I have lost my earnest. Bawd Boult, has she any qualities? BOULT She has a good face, speaks well, and has excellent good clothes: there's no further necessity of qualities can make her be refused. Bawd What's her price, Boult? BOULT I cannot be bated one doit of a thousand pieces. Pandar Well, follow me, my masters, you shall have your money presently. Wife, take her in; instruct her what she has to do, that she may not be raw in her entertainment. [Exeunt Pandar and Pirates] Bawd Boult, take you the marks of her, the colour of her hair, complexion, height, age, with warrant of her virginity; and cry 'He that will give most shall have her first.' Such a maidenhead were no cheap thing, if men were as they have been. Get this done as I command you. BOULT Performance shall follow. [Exit] MARINA Alack that Leonine was so slack, so slow! He should have struck, not spoke; or that these pirates, Not enough barbarous, had not o'erboard thrown me For to seek my mother! Bawd Why lament you, pretty one? MARINA That I am pretty. Bawd Come, the gods have done their part in you. MARINA I accuse them not. Bawd You are light into my hands, where you are like to live. MARINA The more my fault To scape his hands where I was like to die. Bawd Ay, and you shall live in pleasure. MARINA No. Bawd Yes, indeed shall you, and taste gentlemen of all fashions: you shall fare well; you shall have the difference of all complexions. What! do you stop your ears? MARINA Are you a woman? Bawd What would you have me be, an I be not a woman? MARINA An honest woman, or not a woman. Bawd Marry, whip thee, gosling: I think I shall have something to do with you. Come, you're a young foolish sapling, and must be bowed as I would have you. MARINA The gods defend me! Bawd If it please the gods to defend you by men, then men must comfort you, men must feed you, men must stir you up. Boult's returned. [Re-enter BOULT] Now, sir, hast thou cried her through the market? BOULT I have cried her almost to the number of her hairs; I have drawn her picture with my voice. Bawd And I prithee tell me, how dost thou find the inclination of the people, especially of the younger sort? BOULT 'Faith, they listened to me as they would have hearkened to their father's testament. There was a Spaniard's mouth so watered, that he went to bed to her very description. Bawd We shall have him here to-morrow with his best ruff on. BOULT To-night, to-night. But, mistress, do you know the French knight that cowers i' the hams? Bawd Who, Monsieur Veroles? BOULT Ay, he: he offered to cut a caper at the proclamation; but he made a groan at it, and swore he would see her to-morrow. Bawd Well, well; as for him, he brought his disease hither: here he does but repair it. I know he will come in our shadow, to scatter his crowns in the sun. BOULT Well, if we had of every nation a traveller, we should lodge them with this sign. Bawd [To MARINA] Pray you, come hither awhile. You have fortunes coming upon you. Mark me: you must seem to do that fearfully which you commit willingly, despise profit where you have most gain. To weep that you live as ye do makes pity in your lovers: seldom but that pity begets you a good opinion, and that opinion a mere profit. MARINA I understand you not. BOULT O, take her home, mistress, take her home: these blushes of hers must be quenched with some present practise. Bawd Thou sayest true, i' faith, so they must; for your bride goes to that with shame which is her way to go with warrant. BOULT 'Faith, some do, and some do not. But, mistress, if I have bargained for the joint,-- Bawd Thou mayst cut a morsel off the spit. BOULT I may so. Bawd Who should deny it? Come, young one, I like the manner of your garments well. BOULT Ay, by my faith, they shall not be changed yet. Bawd Boult, spend thou that in the town: report what a sojourner we have; you'll lose nothing by custom. When nature flamed this piece, she meant thee a good turn; therefore say what a paragon she is, and thou hast the harvest out of thine own report. BOULT I warrant you, mistress, thunder shall not so awake the beds of eels as my giving out her beauty stir up the lewdly-inclined. I'll bring home some to-night. Bawd Come your ways; follow me. MARINA If fires be hot, knives sharp, or waters deep, Untied I still my virgin knot will keep. Diana, aid my purpose! Bawd What have we to do with Diana? Pray you, will you go with us? [Exeunt] PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE ACT IV SCENE III Tarsus. A room in CLEON's house. [Enter CLEON and DIONYZA] DIONYZA Why, are you foolish? Can it be undone? CLEON O Dionyza, such a piece of slaughter The sun and moon ne'er look'd upon! DIONYZA I think You'll turn a child again. CLEON Were I chief lord of all this spacious world, I'ld give it to undo the deed. O lady, Much less in blood than virtue, yet a princess To equal any single crown o' the earth I' the justice of compare! O villain Leonine! Whom thou hast poison'd too: If thou hadst drunk to him, 't had been a kindness Becoming well thy fact: what canst thou say When noble Pericles shall demand his child? DIONYZA That she is dead. Nurses are not the fates, To foster it, nor ever to preserve. She died at night; I'll say so. Who can cross it? Unless you play the pious innocent, And for an honest attribute cry out 'She died by foul play.' CLEON O, go to. Well, well, Of all the faults beneath the heavens, the gods Do like this worst. DIONYZA Be one of those that think The petty wrens of Tarsus will fly hence, And open this to Pericles. I do shame To think of what a noble strain you are, And of how coward a spirit. CLEON To such proceeding Who ever but his approbation added, Though not his prime consent, he did not flow From honourable sources. DIONYZA Be it so, then: Yet none does know, but you, how she came dead, Nor none can know, Leonine being gone. She did disdain my child, and stood between Her and her fortunes: none would look on her, But cast their gazes on Marina's face; Whilst ours was blurted at and held a malkin Not worth the time of day. It pierced me through; And though you call my course unnatural, You not your child well loving, yet I find It greets me as an enterprise of kindness Perform'd to your sole daughter. CLEON Heavens forgive it! DIONYZA And as for Pericles, What should he say? We wept after her hearse, And yet we mourn: her monument Is almost finish'd, and her epitaphs In glittering golden characters express A general praise to her, and care in us At whose expense 'tis done. CLEON Thou art like the harpy, Which, to betray, dost, with thine angel's face, Seize with thine eagle's talons. DIONYZA You are like one that superstitiously Doth swear to the gods that winter kills the flies: But yet I know you'll do as I advise. [Exeunt] PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE ACT IV SCENE IV: [Enter GOWER, before the monument of MARINA at Tarsus] GOWER Thus time we waste, and longest leagues make short; Sail seas in cockles, have an wish but for't; Making, to take your imagination, From bourn to bourn, region to region. By you being pardon'd, we commit no crime To use one language in each several clime Where our scenes seem to live. I do beseech you To learn of me, who stand i' the gaps to teach you, The stages of our story. Pericles Is now again thwarting the wayward seas, Attended on by many a lord and knight. To see his daughter, all his life's delight. Old Escanes, whom Helicanus late Advanced in time to great and high estate, Is left to govern. Bear you it in mind, Old Helicanus goes along behind. Well-sailing ships and bounteous winds have brought This king to Tarsus,--think his pilot thought; So with his steerage shall your thoughts grow on,-- To fetch his daughter home, who first is gone. Like motes and shadows see them move awhile; Your ears unto your eyes I'll reconcile. DUMB SHOW. [Enter PERICLES, at one door, with all his train; CLEON and DIONYZA, at the other. CLEON shows PERICLES the tomb; whereat PERICLES makes lamentation, puts on sackcloth, and in a mighty passion departs. Then exeunt CLEON and DIONYZA] See how belief may suffer by foul show! This borrow'd passion stands for true old woe; And Pericles, in sorrow all devour'd, With sighs shot through, and biggest tears o'ershower'd, Leaves Tarsus and again embarks. He swears Never to wash his face, nor cut his hairs: He puts on sackcloth, and to sea. He bears A tempest, which his mortal vessel tears, And yet he rides it out. Now please you wit. The epitaph is for Marina writ By wicked Dionyza. [Reads the inscription on MARINA's monument] 'The fairest, sweet'st, and best lies here, Who wither'd in her spring of year. She was of Tyrus the king's daughter, On whom foul death hath made this slaughter; Marina was she call'd; and at her birth, Thetis, being proud, swallow'd some part o' the earth: Therefore the earth, fearing to be o'erflow'd, Hath Thetis' birth-child on the heavens bestow'd: Wherefore she does, and swears she'll never stint, Make raging battery upon shores of flint.' No visor does become black villany So well as soft and tender flattery. Let Pericles believe his daughter's dead, And bear his courses to be ordered By Lady Fortune; while our scene must play His daughter's woe and heavy well-a-day In her unholy service. Patience, then, And think you now are all in Mytilene. [Exit] PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE ACT IV SCENE V Mytilene. A street before the brothel. [Enter, from the brothel, two Gentlemen] First Gentleman Did you ever hear the like? Second Gentleman No, nor never shall do in such a place as this, she being once gone. First Gentleman But to have divinity preached there! did you ever dream of such a thing? Second Gentleman No, no. Come, I am for no more bawdy-houses: shall's go hear the vestals sing? First Gentleman I'll do any thing now that is virtuous; but I am out of the road of rutting for ever. [Exeunt] PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE ACT IV SCENE VI The same. A room in the brothel. [Enter Pandar, Bawd, and BOULT] Pandar Well, I had rather than twice the worth of her she had ne'er come here. Bawd Fie, fie upon her! she's able to freeze the god Priapus, and undo a whole generation. We must either get her ravished, or be rid of her. When she should do for clients her fitment, and do me the kindness of our profession, she has me her quirks, her reasons, her master reasons, her prayers, her knees; that she would make a puritan of the devil, if he should cheapen a kiss of her. BOULT 'Faith, I must ravish her, or she'll disfurnish us of all our cavaliers, and make our swearers priests. Pandar Now, the pox upon her green-sickness for me! Bawd 'Faith, there's no way to be rid on't but by the way to the pox. Here comes the Lord Lysimachus disguised. BOULT We should have both lord and lown, if the peevish baggage would but give way to customers. [Enter LYSIMACHUS] LYSIMACHUS How now! How a dozen of virginities? Bawd Now, the gods to-bless your honour! BOULT I am glad to see your honour in good health. LYSIMACHUS You may so; 'tis the better for you that your resorters stand upon sound legs. How now! wholesome iniquity have you that a man may deal withal, and defy the surgeon? Bawd We have here one, sir, if she would--but there never came her like in Mytilene. LYSIMACHUS If she'ld do the deed of darkness, thou wouldst say. Bawd Your honour knows what 'tis to say well enough. LYSIMACHUS Well, call forth, call forth. BOULT For flesh and blood, sir, white and red, you shall see a rose; and she were a rose indeed, if she had but-- LYSIMACHUS What, prithee? BOULT O, sir, I can be modest. LYSIMACHUS That dignifies the renown of a bawd, no less than it gives a good report to a number to be chaste. [Exit BOULT] Bawd Here comes that which grows to the stalk; never plucked yet, I can assure you. [Re-enter BOULT with MARINA] Is she not a fair creature? LYSIMACHUS 'Faith, she would serve after a long voyage at sea. Well, there's for you: leave us. Bawd I beseech your honour, give me leave: a word, and I'll have done presently. LYSIMACHUS I beseech you, do. Bawd [To MARINA] First, I would have you note, this is an honourable man. MARINA I desire to find him so, that I may worthily note him. Bawd Next, he's the governor of this country, and a man whom I am bound to. MARINA If he govern the country, you are bound to him indeed; but how honourable he is in that, I know not. Bawd Pray you, without any more virginal fencing, will you use him kindly? He will line your apron with gold. MARINA What he will do graciously, I will thankfully receive. LYSIMACHUS Ha' you done? Bawd My lord, she's not paced yet: you must take some pains to work her to your manage. Come, we will leave his honour and her together. Go thy ways. [Exeunt Bawd, Pandar, and BOULT] LYSIMACHUS Now, pretty one, how long have you been at this trade? MARINA What trade, sir? LYSIMACHUS Why, I cannot name't but I shall offend. MARINA I cannot be offended with my trade. Please you to name it. LYSIMACHUS How long have you been of this profession? MARINA E'er since I can remember. LYSIMACHUS Did you go to 't so young? Were you a gamester at five or at seven? MARINA Earlier too, sir, if now I be one. LYSIMACHUS Why, the house you dwell in proclaims you to be a creature of sale. MARINA Do you know this house to be a place of such resort, and will come into 't? I hear say you are of honourable parts, and are the governor of this place. LYSIMACHUS Why, hath your principal made known unto you who I am? MARINA Who is my principal? LYSIMACHUS Why, your herb-woman; she that sets seeds and roots of shame and iniquity. O, you have heard something of my power, and so stand aloof for more serious wooing. But I protest to thee, pretty one, my authority shall not see thee, or else look friendly upon thee. Come, bring me to some private place: come, come. MARINA If you were born to honour, show it now; If put upon you, make the judgment good That thought you worthy of it. LYSIMACHUS How's this? how's this? Some more; be sage. MARINA For me, That am a maid, though most ungentle fortune Have placed me in this sty, where, since I came, Diseases have been sold dearer than physic, O, that the gods Would set me free from this unhallow'd place, Though they did change me to the meanest bird That flies i' the purer air! LYSIMACHUS I did not think Thou couldst have spoke so well; ne'er dream'd thou couldst. Had I brought hither a corrupted mind, Thy speech had alter'd it. Hold, here's gold for thee: Persever in that clear way thou goest, And the gods strengthen thee! MARINA The good gods preserve you! LYSIMACHUS For me, be you thoughten That I came with no ill intent; for to me The very doors and windows savour vilely. Fare thee well. Thou art a piece of virtue, and I doubt not but thy training hath been noble. Hold, here's more gold for thee. A curse upon him, die he like a thief, That robs thee of thy goodness! If thou dost Hear from me, it shall be for thy good. [Re-enter BOULT] BOULT I beseech your honour, one piece for me. LYSIMACHUS Avaunt, thou damned door-keeper! Your house, but for this virgin that doth prop it, Would sink and overwhelm you. Away! [Exit] BOULT How's this? We must take another course with you. If your peevish chastity, which is not worth a breakfast in the cheapest country under the cope, shall undo a whole household, let me be gelded like a spaniel. Come your ways. MARINA Whither would you have me? BOULT I must have your maidenhead taken off, or the common hangman shall execute it. Come your ways. We'll have no more gentlemen driven away. Come your ways, I say. [Re-enter Bawd] Bawd How now! what's the matter? BOULT Worse and worse, mistress; she has here spoken holy words to the Lord Lysimachus. Bawd O abominable! BOULT She makes our profession as it were to stink afore the face of the gods. Bawd Marry, hang her up for ever! BOULT The nobleman would have dealt with her like a nobleman, and she sent him away as cold as a snowball; saying his prayers too. Bawd Boult, take her away; use her at thy pleasure: crack the glass of her virginity, and make the rest malleable. BOULT An if she were a thornier piece of ground than she is, she shall be ploughed. MARINA Hark, hark, you gods! Bawd She conjures: away with her! Would she had never come within my doors! Marry, hang you! She's born to undo us. Will you not go the way of women-kind? Marry, come up, my dish of chastity with rosemary and bays! [Exit] BOULT Come, mistress; come your ways with me. MARINA Whither wilt thou have me? BOULT To take from you the jewel you hold so dear. MARINA Prithee, tell me one thing first. BOULT Come now, your one thing. MARINA What canst thou wish thine enemy to be? BOULT Why, I could wish him to be my master, or rather, my mistress. MARINA Neither of these are so bad as thou art, Since they do better thee in their command. Thou hold'st a place, for which the pained'st fiend Of hell would not in reputation change: Thou art the damned doorkeeper to every Coistrel that comes inquiring for his Tib; To the choleric fisting of every rogue Thy ear is liable; thy food is such As hath been belch'd on by infected lungs. BOULT What would you have me do? go to the wars, would you? where a man may serve seven years for the loss of a leg, and have not money enough in the end to buy him a wooden one? MARINA Do any thing but this thou doest. Empty OLD receptacles, or common shores, of filth; Serve by indenture to the common hangman: Any of these ways are yet better than this; For what thou professest, a baboon, could he speak, Would own a name too dear. O, that the gods Would safely deliver me from this place! Here, here's gold for thee. If that thy master would gain by thee, Proclaim that I can sing, weave, sew, and dance, With other virtues, which I'll keep from boast: And I will undertake all these to teach. I doubt not but this populous city will Yield many scholars. BOULT But can you teach all this you speak of? MARINA Prove that I cannot, take me home again, And prostitute me to the basest groom That doth frequent your house. BOULT Well, I will see what I can do for thee: if I can place thee, I will. MARINA But amongst honest women. BOULT 'Faith, my acquaintance lies little amongst them. But since my master and mistress have bought you, there's no going but by their consent: therefore I will make them acquainted with your purpose, and I doubt not but I shall find them tractable enough. Come, I'll do for thee what I can; come your ways. [Exeunt] PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE ACT V [Enter GOWER] GOWER Marina thus the brothel 'scapes, and chances Into an honest house, our story says. She sings like one immortal, and she dances As goddess-like to her admired lays; Deep clerks she dumbs; and with her needle composes Nature's own shape, of bud, bird, branch, or berry, That even her art sisters the natural roses; Her inkle, silk, twin with the rubied cherry: That pupils lacks she none of noble race, Who pour their bounty on her; and her gain She gives the cursed bawd. Here we her place; And to her father turn our thoughts again, Where we left him, on the sea. We there him lost; Whence, driven before the winds, he is arrived Here where his daughter dwells; and on this coast Suppose him now at anchor. The city strived God Neptune's annual feast to keep: from whence Lysimachus our Tyrian ship espies, His banners sable, trimm'd with rich expense; And to him in his barge with fervor hies. In your supposing once more put your sight Of heavy Pericles; think this his bark: Where what is done in action, more, if might, Shall be discover'd; please you, sit and hark. [Exit] PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE ACT V SCENE I On board PERICLES' ship, off Mytilene. A close pavilion on deck, with a curtain before it; PERICLES within it, reclined on a couch. A barge lying beside the Tyrian vessel. [Enter two Sailors, one belonging to the Tyrian vessel, the other to the barge; to them HELICANUS] Tyrian Sailor [To the Sailor of Mytilene] Where is lord Helicanus? he can resolve you. O, here he is. Sir, there's a barge put off from Mytilene, And in it is Lysimachus the governor, Who craves to come aboard. What is your will? HELICANUS That he have his. Call up some gentlemen. Tyrian Sailor Ho, gentlemen! my lord calls. [Enter two or three Gentlemen] First Gentleman Doth your lordship call? HELICANUS Gentlemen, there's some of worth would come aboard; I pray ye, greet them fairly. [The Gentlemen and the two Sailors descend, and go on board the barge] [Enter, from thence, LYSIMACHUS and Lords; with the Gentlemen and the two Sailors] Tyrian Sailor Sir, This is the man that can, in aught you would, Resolve you. LYSIMACHUS Hail, reverend sir! the gods preserve you! HELICANUS And you, sir, to outlive the age I am, And die as I would do. LYSIMACHUS You wish me well. Being on shore, honouring of Neptune's triumphs, Seeing this goodly vessel ride before us, I made to it, to know of whence you are. HELICANUS First, what is your place? LYSIMACHUS I am the governor of this place you lie before. HELICANUS Sir, Our vessel is of Tyre, in it the king; A man who for this three months hath not spoken To any one, nor taken sustenance But to prorogue his grief. LYSIMACHUS Upon what ground is his distemperature? HELICANUS 'Twould be too tedious to repeat; But the main grief springs from the loss Of a beloved daughter and a wife. LYSIMACHUS May we not see him? HELICANUS You may; But bootless is your sight: he will not speak To any. LYSIMACHUS Yet let me obtain my wish. HELICANUS Behold him. [PERICLES discovered] This was a goodly person, Till the disaster that, one mortal night, Drove him to this. LYSIMACHUS Sir king, all hail! the gods preserve you! Hail, royal sir! HELICANUS It is in vain; he will not speak to you. First Lord Sir, We have a maid in Mytilene, I durst wager, Would win some words of him. LYSIMACHUS 'Tis well bethought. She questionless with her sweet harmony And other chosen attractions, would allure, And make a battery through his deafen'd parts, Which now are midway stopp'd: She is all happy as the fairest of all, And, with her fellow maids is now upon The leafy shelter that abuts against The island's side. [Whispers a Lord, who goes off in the barge of LYSIMACHUS] HELICANUS Sure, all's effectless; yet nothing we'll omit That bears recovery's name. But, since your kindness We have stretch'd thus far, let us beseech you That for our gold we may provision have, Wherein we are not destitute for want, But weary for the staleness. LYSIMACHUS O, sir, a courtesy Which if we should deny, the most just gods For every graff would send a caterpillar, And so afflict our province. Yet once more Let me entreat to know at large the cause Of your king's sorrow. HELICANUS Sit, sir, I will recount it to you: But, see, I am prevented. [Re-enter, from the barge, Lord, with MARINA, and a young Lady] LYSIMACHUS O, here is The lady that I sent for. Welcome, fair one! Is't not a goodly presence? HELICANUS She's a gallant lady. LYSIMACHUS She's such a one, that, were I well assured Came of a gentle kind and noble stock, I'ld wish no better choice, and think me rarely wed. Fair one, all goodness that consists in bounty Expect even here, where is a kingly patient: If that thy prosperous and artificial feat Can draw him but to answer thee in aught, Thy sacred physic shall receive such pay As thy desires can wish. MARINA Sir, I will use My utmost skill in his recovery, Provided That none but I and my companion maid Be suffer'd to come near him. LYSIMACHUS Come, let us leave her; And the gods make her prosperous! [MARINA sings] LYSIMACHUS Mark'd he your music? MARINA No, nor look'd on us. LYSIMACHUS See, she will speak to him. MARINA Hail, sir! my lord, lend ear. PERICLES Hum, ha! MARINA I am a maid, My lord, that ne'er before invited eyes, But have been gazed on like a comet: she speaks, My lord, that, may be, hath endured a grief Might equal yours, if both were justly weigh'd. Though wayward fortune did malign my state, My derivation was from ancestors Who stood equivalent with mighty kings: But time hath rooted out my parentage, And to the world and awkward casualties Bound me in servitude. [Aside] I will desist; But there is something glows upon my cheek, And whispers in mine ear, 'Go not till he speak.' PERICLES My fortunes--parentage--good parentage-- To equal mine!--was it not thus? what say you? MARINA I said, my lord, if you did know my parentage, You would not do me violence. PERICLES I do think so. Pray you, turn your eyes upon me. You are like something that--What country-woman? Here of these shores? MARINA No, nor of any shores: Yet I was mortally brought forth, and am No other than I appear. PERICLES I am great with woe, and shall deliver weeping. My dearest wife was like this maid, and such a one My daughter might have been: my queen's square brows; Her stature to an inch; as wand-like straight; As silver-voiced; her eyes as jewel-like And cased as richly; in pace another Juno; Who starves the ears she feeds, and makes them hungry, The more she gives them speech. Where do you live? MARINA Where I am but a stranger: from the deck You may discern the place. PERICLES Where were you bred? And how achieved you these endowments, which You make more rich to owe? MARINA If I should tell my history, it would seem Like lies disdain'd in the reporting. PERICLES Prithee, speak: Falseness cannot come from thee; for thou look'st Modest as Justice, and thou seem'st a palace For the crown'd Truth to dwell in: I will believe thee, And make my senses credit thy relation To points that seem impossible; for thou look'st Like one I loved indeed. What were thy friends? Didst thou not say, when I did push thee back-- Which was when I perceived thee--that thou camest From good descending? MARINA So indeed I did. PERICLES Report thy parentage. I think thou said'st Thou hadst been toss'd from wrong to injury, And that thou thought'st thy griefs might equal mine, If both were open'd. MARINA Some such thing I said, and said no more but what my thoughts Did warrant me was likely. PERICLES Tell thy story; If thine consider'd prove the thousandth part Of my endurance, thou art a man, and I Have suffer'd like a girl: yet thou dost look Like Patience gazing on kings' graves, and smiling Extremity out of act. What were thy friends? How lost thou them? Thy name, my most kind virgin? Recount, I do beseech thee: come, sit by me. MARINA My name is Marina. PERICLES O, I am mock'd, And thou by some incensed god sent hither To make the world to laugh at me. MARINA Patience, good sir, Or here I'll cease. PERICLES Nay, I'll be patient. Thou little know'st how thou dost startle me, To call thyself Marina. MARINA The name Was given me by one that had some power, My father, and a king. PERICLES How! a king's daughter? And call'd Marina? MARINA You said you would believe me; But, not to be a troubler of your peace, I will end here. PERICLES But are you flesh and blood? Have you a working pulse? and are no fairy? Motion! Well; speak on. Where were you born? And wherefore call'd Marina? MARINA Call'd Marina For I was born at sea. PERICLES At sea! what mother? MARINA My mother was the daughter of a king; Who died the minute I was born, As my good nurse Lychorida hath oft Deliver'd weeping. PERICLES O, stop there a little! [Aside] This is the rarest dream that e'er dull sleep Did mock sad fools withal: this cannot be: My daughter's buried. Well: where were you bred? I'll hear you more, to the bottom of your story, And never interrupt you. MARINA You scorn: believe me, 'twere best I did give o'er. PERICLES I will believe you by the syllable Of what you shall deliver. Yet, give me leave: How came you in these parts? where were you bred? MARINA The king my father did in Tarsus leave me; Till cruel Cleon, with his wicked wife, Did seek to murder me: and having woo'd A villain to attempt it, who having drawn to do't, A crew of pirates came and rescued me; Brought me to Mytilene. But, good sir, Whither will you have me? Why do you weep? It may be, You think me an impostor: no, good faith; I am the daughter to King Pericles, If good King Pericles be. PERICLES Ho, Helicanus! HELICANUS Calls my lord? PERICLES Thou art a grave and noble counsellor, Most wise in general: tell me, if thou canst, What this maid is, or what is like to be, That thus hath made me weep? HELICANUS I know not; but Here is the regent, sir, of Mytilene Speaks nobly of her. LYSIMACHUS She would never tell Her parentage; being demanded that, She would sit still and weep. PERICLES O Helicanus, strike me, honour'd sir; Give me a gash, put me to present pain; Lest this great sea of joys rushing upon me O'erbear the shores of my mortality, And drown me with their sweetness. O, come hither, Thou that beget'st him that did thee beget; Thou that wast born at sea, buried at Tarsus, And found at sea again! O Helicanus, Down on thy knees, thank the holy gods as loud As thunder threatens us: this is Marina. What was thy mother's name? tell me but that, For truth can never be confirm'd enough, Though doubts did ever sleep. MARINA First, sir, I pray, What is your title? PERICLES I am Pericles of Tyre: but tell me now My drown'd queen's name, as in the rest you said Thou hast been godlike perfect, The heir of kingdoms and another like To Pericles thy father. MARINA Is it no more to be your daughter than To say my mother's name was Thaisa? Thaisa was my mother, who did end The minute I began. PERICLES Now, blessing on thee! rise; thou art my child. Give me fresh garments. Mine own, Helicanus; She is not dead at Tarsus, as she should have been, By savage Cleon: she shall tell thee all; When thou shalt kneel, and justify in knowledge She is thy very princess. Who is this? HELICANUS Sir, 'tis the governor of Mytilene, Who, hearing of your melancholy state, Did come to see you. PERICLES I embrace you. Give me my robes. I am wild in my beholding. O heavens bless my girl! But, hark, what music? Tell Helicanus, my Marina, tell him O'er, point by point, for yet he seems to doubt, How sure you are my daughter. But, what music? HELICANUS My lord, I hear none. PERICLES None! The music of the spheres! List, my Marina. LYSIMACHUS It is not good to cross him; give him way. PERICLES Rarest sounds! Do ye not hear? LYSIMACHUS My lord, I hear. [Music] PERICLES Most heavenly music! It nips me unto listening, and thick slumber Hangs upon mine eyes: let me rest. [Sleeps] LYSIMACHUS A pillow for his head: So, leave him all. Well, my companion friends, If this but answer to my just belief, I'll well remember you. [Exeunt all but PERICLES] [DIANA appears to PERICLES as in a vision] DIANA My temple stands in Ephesus: hie thee thither, And do upon mine altar sacrifice. There, when my maiden priests are met together, Before the people all, Reveal how thou at sea didst lose thy wife: To mourn thy crosses, with thy daughter's, call And give them repetition to the life. Or perform my bidding, or thou livest in woe; Do it, and happy; by my silver bow! Awake, and tell thy dream. [Disappears] PERICLES Celestial Dian, goddess argentine, I will obey thee. Helicanus! [Re-enter HELICANUS, LYSIMACHUS, and MARINA] HELICANUS Sir? PERICLES My purpose was for Tarsus, there to strike The inhospitable Cleon; but I am For other service first: toward Ephesus Turn our blown sails; eftsoons I'll tell thee why. [To LYSIMACHUS] Shall we refresh us, sir, upon your shore, And give you gold for such provision As our intents will need? LYSIMACHUS Sir, With all my heart; and, when you come ashore, I have another suit. PERICLES You shall prevail, Were it to woo my daughter; for it seems You have been noble towards her. LYSIMACHUS Sir, lend me your arm. PERICLES Come, my Marina. [Exeunt] PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE ACT V SCENE II: [Enter GOWER, before the temple of DIANA at Ephesus] GOWER Now our sands are almost run; More a little, and then dumb. This, my last boon, give me, For such kindness must relieve me, That you aptly will suppose What pageantry, what feats, what shows, What minstrelsy, and pretty din, The regent made in Mytilene To greet the king. So he thrived, That he is promised to be wived To fair Marina; but in no wise Till he had done his sacrifice, As Dian bade: whereto being bound, The interim, pray you, all confound. In feather'd briefness sails are fill'd, And wishes fall out as they're will'd. At Ephesus, the temple see, Our king and all his company. That he can hither come so soon, Is by your fancy's thankful doom. [Exit] PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE ACT V SCENE III The temple of Diana at Ephesus; THAISA standing near the altar, as high priestess; a number of Virgins on each side; CERIMON and other Inhabitants of Ephesus attending. [Enter PERICLES, with his train; LYSIMACHUS, HELICANUS, MARINA, and a Lady] PERICLES Hail, Dian! to perform thy just command, I here confess myself the king of Tyre; Who, frighted from my country, did wed At Pentapolis the fair Thaisa. At sea in childbed died she, but brought forth A maid-child call'd Marina; who, O goddess, Wears yet thy silver livery. She at Tarsus Was nursed with Cleon; who at fourteen years He sought to murder: but her better stars Brought her to Mytilene; 'gainst whose shore Riding, her fortunes brought the maid aboard us, Where, by her own most clear remembrance, she Made known herself my daughter. THAISA Voice and favour! You are, you are--O royal Pericles! [Faints] PERICLES What means the nun? she dies! help, gentlemen! CERIMON Noble sir, If you have told Diana's altar true, This is your wife. PERICLES Reverend appearer, no; I threw her overboard with these very arms. CERIMON Upon this coast, I warrant you. PERICLES 'Tis most certain. CERIMON Look to the lady; O, she's but o'erjoy'd. Early in blustering morn this lady was Thrown upon this shore. I oped the coffin, Found there rich jewels; recover'd her, and placed her Here in Diana's temple. PERICLES May we see them? CERIMON Great sir, they shall be brought you to my house, Whither I invite you. Look, Thaisa is recovered. THAISA O, let me look! If he be none of mine, my sanctity Will to my sense bend no licentious ear, But curb it, spite of seeing. O, my lord, Are you not Pericles? Like him you spake, Like him you are: did you not name a tempest, A birth, and death? PERICLES The voice of dead Thaisa! THAISA That Thaisa am I, supposed dead And drown'd. PERICLES Immortal Dian! THAISA Now I know you better. When we with tears parted Pentapolis, The king my father gave you such a ring. [Shows a ring] PERICLES This, this: no more, you gods! your present kindness Makes my past miseries sports: you shall do well, That on the touching of her lips I may Melt and no more be seen. O, come, be buried A second time within these arms. MARINA My heart Leaps to be gone into my mother's bosom. [Kneels to THAISA] PERICLES Look, who kneels here! Flesh of thy flesh, Thaisa; Thy burden at the sea, and call'd Marina For she was yielded there. THAISA Blest, and mine own! HELICANUS Hail, madam, and my queen! THAISA I know you not. PERICLES You have heard me say, when I did fly from Tyre, I left behind an ancient substitute: Can you remember what I call'd the man? I have named him oft. THAISA 'Twas Helicanus then. PERICLES Still confirmation: Embrace him, dear Thaisa; this is he. Now do I long to hear how you were found; How possibly preserved; and who to thank, Besides the gods, for this great miracle. THAISA Lord Cerimon, my lord; this man, Through whom the gods have shown their power; that can From first to last resolve you. PERICLES Reverend sir, The gods can have no mortal officer More like a god than you. Will you deliver How this dead queen re-lives? CERIMON I will, my lord. Beseech you, first go with me to my house, Where shall be shown you all was found with her; How she came placed here in the temple; No needful thing omitted. PERICLES Pure Dian, bless thee for thy vision! I Will offer night-oblations to thee. Thaisa, This prince, the fair-betrothed of your daughter, Shall marry her at Pentapolis. And now, This ornament Makes me look dismal will I clip to form; And what this fourteen years no razor touch'd, To grace thy marriage-day, I'll beautify. THAISA Lord Cerimon hath letters of good credit, sir, My father's dead. PERICLES Heavens make a star of him! Yet there, my queen, We'll celebrate their nuptials, and ourselves Will in that kingdom spend our following days: Our son and daughter shall in Tyrus reign. Lord Cerimon, we do our longing stay To hear the rest untold: sir, lead's the way. [Exeunt] [Enter GOWER] GOWER In Antiochus and his daughter you have heard Of monstrous lust the due and just reward: In Pericles, his queen and daughter, seen, Although assail'd with fortune fierce and keen, Virtue preserved from fell destruction's blast, Led on by heaven, and crown'd with joy at last: In Helicanus may you well descry A figure of truth, of faith, of loyalty: In reverend Cerimon there well appears The worth that learned charity aye wears: For wicked Cleon and his wife, when fame Had spread their cursed deed, and honour'd name Of Pericles, to rage the city turn, That him and his they in his palace burn; The gods for murder seemed so content To punish them; although not done, but meant. So, on your patience evermore attending, New joy wait on you! Here our play has ending. [Exit] THE TAMING OF THE SHREW DRAMATIS PERSONAE A Lord. | | CHRISTOPHER SLY a tinker. (SLY:) | Persons in | the Induction. Hostess, Page, Players, | Huntsmen, and Servants. | (Hostess:) (Page:) (A Player:) (First Huntsman:) (Second Huntsman:) (Messenger:) (First Servant:) (Second Servant:) (Third Servant:) BAPTISTA a rich gentleman of Padua. VINCENTIO an old gentleman of Pisa. LUCENTIO son to Vincentio, in love with Bianca. PETRUCHIO a gentleman of Verona, a suitor to Katharina. GREMIO | | suitors to Bianca. HORTENSIO | TRANIO | | servants to Lucentio. BIONDELLO | GRUMIO | | CURTIS | | NATHANIEL | | NICHOLAS | servants to Petruchio. | JOSEPH | | PHILIP | | PETER | A Pedant. KATHARINA the shrew, | | daughters to Baptista. BIANCA | Widow. Tailor, Haberdasher, and Servants attending on Baptista and Petruchio. (Tailor:) (Haberdasher:) (First Servant:) SCENE Padua, and Petruchio's country house. THE TAMING OF THE SHREW INDUCTION SCENE I Before an alehouse on a heath. [Enter Hostess and SLY] SLY I'll pheeze you, in faith. Hostess A pair of stocks, you rogue! SLY Ye are a baggage: the Slys are no rogues; look in the chronicles; we came in with Richard Conqueror. Therefore paucas pallabris; let the world slide: sessa! Hostess You will not pay for the glasses you have burst? SLY No, not a denier. Go by, Jeronimy: go to thy cold bed, and warm thee. Hostess I know my remedy; I must go fetch the third--borough. [Exit] SLY Third, or fourth, or fifth borough, I'll answer him by law: I'll not budge an inch, boy: let him come, and kindly. [Falls asleep] [Horns winded. Enter a Lord from hunting, with his train] Lord Huntsman, I charge thee, tender well my hounds: Brach Merriman, the poor cur is emboss'd; And couple Clowder with the deep--mouth'd brach. Saw'st thou not, boy, how Silver made it good At the hedge-corner, in the coldest fault? I would not lose the dog for twenty pound. First Huntsman Why, Belman is as good as he, my lord; He cried upon it at the merest loss And twice to-day pick'd out the dullest scent: Trust me, I take him for the better dog. Lord Thou art a fool: if Echo were as fleet, I would esteem him worth a dozen such. But sup them well and look unto them all: To-morrow I intend to hunt again. First Huntsman I will, my lord. Lord What's here? one dead, or drunk? See, doth he breathe? Second Huntsman He breathes, my lord. Were he not warm'd with ale, This were a bed but cold to sleep so soundly. Lord O monstrous beast! how like a swine he lies! Grim death, how foul and loathsome is thine image! Sirs, I will practise on this drunken man. What think you, if he were convey'd to bed, Wrapp'd in sweet clothes, rings put upon his fingers, A most delicious banquet by his bed, And brave attendants near him when he wakes, Would not the beggar then forget himself? First Huntsman Believe me, lord, I think he cannot choose. Second Huntsman It would seem strange unto him when he waked. Lord Even as a flattering dream or worthless fancy. Then take him up and manage well the jest: Carry him gently to my fairest chamber And hang it round with all my wanton pictures: Balm his foul head in warm distilled waters And burn sweet wood to make the lodging sweet: Procure me music ready when he wakes, To make a dulcet and a heavenly sound; And if he chance to speak, be ready straight And with a low submissive reverence Say 'What is it your honour will command?' Let one attend him with a silver basin Full of rose-water and bestrew'd with flowers, Another bear the ewer, the third a diaper, And say 'Will't please your lordship cool your hands?' Some one be ready with a costly suit And ask him what apparel he will wear; Another tell him of his hounds and horse, And that his lady mourns at his disease: Persuade him that he hath been lunatic; And when he says he is, say that he dreams, For he is nothing but a mighty lord. This do and do it kindly, gentle sirs: It will be pastime passing excellent, If it be husbanded with modesty. First Huntsman My lord, I warrant you we will play our part, As he shall think by our true diligence He is no less than what we say he is. Lord Take him up gently and to bed with him; And each one to his office when he wakes. [Some bear out SLY. A trumpet sounds] Sirrah, go see what trumpet 'tis that sounds: [Exit Servingman] Belike, some noble gentleman that means, Travelling some journey, to repose him here. [Re-enter Servingman] How now! who is it? Servant An't please your honour, players That offer service to your lordship. Lord Bid them come near. [Enter Players] Now, fellows, you are welcome. Players We thank your honour. Lord Do you intend to stay with me tonight? A Player So please your lordship to accept our duty. Lord With all my heart. This fellow I remember, Since once he play'd a farmer's eldest son: 'Twas where you woo'd the gentlewoman so well: I have forgot your name; but, sure, that part Was aptly fitted and naturally perform'd. A Player I think 'twas Soto that your honour means. Lord 'Tis very true: thou didst it excellent. Well, you are come to me in a happy time; The rather for I have some sport in hand Wherein your cunning can assist me much. There is a lord will hear you play to-night: But I am doubtful of your modesties; Lest over-eyeing of his odd behavior,-- For yet his honour never heard a play-- You break into some merry passion And so offend him; for I tell you, sirs, If you should smile he grows impatient. A Player Fear not, my lord: we can contain ourselves, Were he the veriest antic in the world. Lord Go, sirrah, take them to the buttery, And give them friendly welcome every one: Let them want nothing that my house affords. [Exit one with the Players] Sirrah, go you to Barthol'mew my page, And see him dress'd in all suits like a lady: That done, conduct him to the drunkard's chamber; And call him 'madam,' do him obeisance. Tell him from me, as he will win my love, He bear himself with honourable action, Such as he hath observed in noble ladies Unto their lords, by them accomplished: Such duty to the drunkard let him do With soft low tongue and lowly courtesy, And say 'What is't your honour will command, Wherein your lady and your humble wife May show her duty and make known her love?' And then with kind embracements, tempting kisses, And with declining head into his bosom, Bid him shed tears, as being overjoy'd To see her noble lord restored to health, Who for this seven years hath esteem'd him No better than a poor and loathsome beggar: And if the boy have not a woman's gift To rain a shower of commanded tears, An onion will do well for such a shift, Which in a napkin being close convey'd Shall in despite enforce a watery eye. See this dispatch'd with all the haste thou canst: Anon I'll give thee more instructions. [Exit a Servingman] I know the boy will well usurp the grace, Voice, gait and action of a gentlewoman: I long to hear him call the drunkard husband, And how my men will stay themselves from laughter When they do homage to this simple peasant. I'll in to counsel them; haply my presence May well abate the over-merry spleen Which otherwise would grow into extremes. [Exeunt] THE TAMING OF THE SHREW INDUCTION SCENE II A bedchamber in the Lord's house. [Enter aloft SLY, with Attendants; some with apparel, others with basin and ewer and appurtenances; and Lord] SLY For God's sake, a pot of small ale. First Servant Will't please your lordship drink a cup of sack? Second Servant Will't please your honour taste of these conserves? Third Servant What raiment will your honour wear to-day? SLY I am Christophero Sly; call not me 'honour' nor 'lordship:' I ne'er drank sack in my life; and if you give me any conserves, give me conserves of beef: ne'er ask me what raiment I'll wear; for I have no more doublets than backs, no more stockings than legs, nor no more shoes than feet; nay, sometimes more feet than shoes, or such shoes as my toes look through the over-leather. Lord Heaven cease this idle humour in your honour! O, that a mighty man of such descent, Of such possessions and so high esteem, Should be infused with so foul a spirit! SLY What, would you make me mad? Am not I Christopher Sly, old Sly's son of Burtonheath, by birth a pedlar, by education a cardmaker, by transmutation a bear-herd, and now by present profession a tinker? Ask Marian Hacket, the fat ale-wife of Wincot, if she know me not: if she say I am not fourteen pence on the score for sheer ale, score me up for the lyingest knave in Christendom. What! I am not bestraught: here's-- Third Servant O, this it is that makes your lady mourn! Second Servant O, this is it that makes your servants droop! Lord Hence comes it that your kindred shuns your house, As beaten hence by your strange lunacy. O noble lord, bethink thee of thy birth, Call home thy ancient thoughts from banishment And banish hence these abject lowly dreams. Look how thy servants do attend on thee, Each in his office ready at thy beck. Wilt thou have music? hark! Apollo plays, [Music] And twenty caged nightingales do sing: Or wilt thou sleep? we'll have thee to a couch Softer and sweeter than the lustful bed On purpose trimm'd up for Semiramis. Say thou wilt walk; we will bestrew the ground: Or wilt thou ride? thy horses shall be trapp'd, Their harness studded all with gold and pearl. Dost thou love hawking? thou hast hawks will soar Above the morning lark or wilt thou hunt? Thy hounds shall make the welkin answer them And fetch shrill echoes from the hollow earth. First Servant Say thou wilt course; thy greyhounds are as swift As breathed stags, ay, fleeter than the roe. Second Servant Dost thou love pictures? we will fetch thee straight Adonis painted by a running brook, And Cytherea all in sedges hid, Which seem to move and wanton with her breath, Even as the waving sedges play with wind. Lord We'll show thee Io as she was a maid, And how she was beguiled and surprised, As lively painted as the deed was done. Third Servant Or Daphne roaming through a thorny wood, Scratching her legs that one shall swear she bleeds, And at that sight shall sad Apollo weep, So workmanly the blood and tears are drawn. Lord Thou art a lord, and nothing but a lord: Thou hast a lady far more beautiful Than any woman in this waning age. First Servant And till the tears that she hath shed for thee Like envious floods o'er-run her lovely face, She was the fairest creature in the world; And yet she is inferior to none. SLY Am I a lord? and have I such a lady? Or do I dream? or have I dream'd till now? I do not sleep: I see, I hear, I speak; I smell sweet savours and I feel soft things: Upon my life, I am a lord indeed And not a tinker nor Christophero Sly. Well, bring our lady hither to our sight; And once again, a pot o' the smallest ale. Second Servant Will't please your mightiness to wash your hands? O, how we joy to see your wit restored! O, that once more you knew but what you are! These fifteen years you have been in a dream; Or when you waked, so waked as if you slept. SLY These fifteen years! by my fay, a goodly nap. But did I never speak of all that time? First Servant O, yes, my lord, but very idle words: For though you lay here in this goodly chamber, Yet would you say ye were beaten out of door; And rail upon the hostess of the house; And say you would present her at the leet, Because she brought stone jugs and no seal'd quarts: Sometimes you would call out for Cicely Hacket. SLY Ay, the woman's maid of the house. Third Servant Why, sir, you know no house nor no such maid, Nor no such men as you have reckon'd up, As Stephen Sly and did John Naps of Greece And Peter Turph and Henry Pimpernell And twenty more such names and men as these Which never were nor no man ever saw. SLY Now Lord be thanked for my good amends! ALL Amen. SLY I thank thee: thou shalt not lose by it. [Enter the Page as a lady, with attendants] Page How fares my noble lord? SLY Marry, I fare well for here is cheer enough. Where is my wife? Page Here, noble lord: what is thy will with her? SLY Are you my wife and will not call me husband? My men should call me 'lord:' I am your goodman. Page My husband and my lord, my lord and husband; I am your wife in all obedience. SLY I know it well. What must I call her? Lord Madam. SLY Al'ce madam, or Joan madam? Lord 'Madam,' and nothing else: so lords call ladies. SLY Madam wife, they say that I have dream'd And slept above some fifteen year or more. Page Ay, and the time seems thirty unto me, Being all this time abandon'd from your bed. SLY 'Tis much. Servants, leave me and her alone. Madam, undress you and come now to bed. Page Thrice noble lord, let me entreat of you To pardon me yet for a night or two, Or, if not so, until the sun be set: For your physicians have expressly charged, In peril to incur your former malady, That I should yet absent me from your bed: I hope this reason stands for my excuse. SLY Ay, it stands so that I may hardly tarry so long. But I would be loath to fall into my dreams again: I will therefore tarry in despite of the flesh and the blood. [Enter a Messenger] Messenger Your honour's players, heating your amendment, Are come to play a pleasant comedy; For so your doctors hold it very meet, Seeing too much sadness hath congeal'd your blood, And melancholy is the nurse of frenzy: Therefore they thought it good you hear a play And frame your mind to mirth and merriment, Which bars a thousand harms and lengthens life. SLY Marry, I will, let them play it. Is not a comondy a Christmas gambold or a tumbling-trick? Page No, my good lord; it is more pleasing stuff. SLY What, household stuff? Page It is a kind of history. SLY Well, well see't. Come, madam wife, sit by my side and let the world slip: we shall ne'er be younger. [Flourish] THE TAMING OF THE SHREW ACT I SCENE I Padua. A public place. [Enter LUCENTIO and his man TRANIO] LUCENTIO Tranio, since for the great desire I had To see fair Padua, nursery of arts, I am arrived for fruitful Lombardy, The pleasant garden of great Italy; And by my father's love and leave am arm'd With his good will and thy good company, My trusty servant, well approved in all, Here let us breathe and haply institute A course of learning and ingenious studies. Pisa renown'd for grave citizens Gave me my being and my father first, A merchant of great traffic through the world, Vincetino come of Bentivolii. Vincetino's son brought up in Florence It shall become to serve all hopes conceived, To deck his fortune with his virtuous deeds: And therefore, Tranio, for the time I study, Virtue and that part of philosophy Will I apply that treats of happiness By virtue specially to be achieved. Tell me thy mind; for I have Pisa left And am to Padua come, as he that leaves A shallow plash to plunge him in the deep And with satiety seeks to quench his thirst. TRANIO Mi perdonato, gentle master mine, I am in all affected as yourself; Glad that you thus continue your resolve To suck the sweets of sweet philosophy. Only, good master, while we do admire This virtue and this moral discipline, Let's be no stoics nor no stocks, I pray; Or so devote to Aristotle's cheques As Ovid be an outcast quite abjured: Balk logic with acquaintance that you have And practise rhetoric in your common talk; Music and poesy use to quicken you; The mathematics and the metaphysics, Fall to them as you find your stomach serves you; No profit grows where is no pleasure ta'en: In brief, sir, study what you most affect. LUCENTIO Gramercies, Tranio, well dost thou advise. If, Biondello, thou wert come ashore, We could at once put us in readiness, And take a lodging fit to entertain Such friends as time in Padua shall beget. But stay a while: what company is this? TRANIO Master, some show to welcome us to town. [Enter BAPTISTA, KATHARINA, BIANCA, GREMIO, and HORTENSIO. LUCENTIO and TRANIO stand by] BAPTISTA Gentlemen, importune me no farther, For how I firmly am resolved you know; That is, not bestow my youngest daughter Before I have a husband for the elder: If either of you both love Katharina, Because I know you well and love you well, Leave shall you have to court her at your pleasure. GREMIO [Aside] To cart her rather: she's too rough for me. There, There, Hortensio, will you any wife? KATHARINA I pray you, sir, is it your will To make a stale of me amongst these mates? HORTENSIO Mates, maid! how mean you that? no mates for you, Unless you were of gentler, milder mould. KATHARINA I'faith, sir, you shall never need to fear: I wis it is not half way to her heart; But if it were, doubt not her care should be To comb your noddle with a three-legg'd stool And paint your face and use you like a fool. HORTENSIA From all such devils, good Lord deliver us! GREMIO And me too, good Lord! TRANIO Hush, master! here's some good pastime toward: That wench is stark mad or wonderful froward. LUCENTIO But in the other's silence do I see Maid's mild behavior and sobriety. Peace, Tranio! TRANIO Well said, master; mum! and gaze your fill. BAPTISTA Gentlemen, that I may soon make good What I have said, Bianca, get you in: And let it not displease thee, good Bianca, For I will love thee ne'er the less, my girl. KATHARINA A pretty peat! it is best Put finger in the eye, an she knew why. BIANCA Sister, content you in my discontent. Sir, to your pleasure humbly I subscribe: My books and instruments shall be my company, On them to took and practise by myself. LUCENTIO Hark, Tranio! thou may'st hear Minerva speak. HORTENSIO Signior Baptista, will you be so strange? Sorry am I that our good will effects Bianca's grief. GREMIO Why will you mew her up, Signior Baptista, for this fiend of hell, And make her bear the penance of her tongue? BAPTISTA Gentlemen, content ye; I am resolved: Go in, Bianca: [Exit BIANCA] And for I know she taketh most delight In music, instruments and poetry, Schoolmasters will I keep within my house, Fit to instruct her youth. If you, Hortensio, Or Signior Gremio, you, know any such, Prefer them hither; for to cunning men I will be very kind, and liberal To mine own children in good bringing up: And so farewell. Katharina, you may stay; For I have more to commune with Bianca. [Exit] KATHARINA Why, and I trust I may go too, may I not? What, shall I be appointed hours; as though, belike, I knew not what to take and what to leave, ha? [Exit] GREMIO You may go to the devil's dam: your gifts are so good, here's none will hold you. Their love is not so great, Hortensio, but we may blow our nails together, and fast it fairly out: our cakes dough on both sides. Farewell: yet for the love I bear my sweet Bianca, if I can by any means light on a fit man to teach her that wherein she delights, I will wish him to her father. HORTENSIO So will I, Signior Gremio: but a word, I pray. Though the nature of our quarrel yet never brooked parle, know now, upon advice, it toucheth us both, that we may yet again have access to our fair mistress and be happy rivals in Bianco's love, to labour and effect one thing specially. GREMIO What's that, I pray? HORTENSIO Marry, sir, to get a husband for her sister. GREMIO A husband! a devil. HORTENSIO I say, a husband. GREMIO I say, a devil. Thinkest thou, Hortensio, though her father be very rich, any man is so very a fool to be married to hell? HORTENSIO Tush, Gremio, though it pass your patience and mine to endure her loud alarums, why, man, there be good fellows in the world, an a man could light on them, would take her with all faults, and money enough. GREMIO I cannot tell; but I had as lief take her dowry with this condition, to be whipped at the high cross every morning. HORTENSIO Faith, as you say, there's small choice in rotten apples. But come; since this bar in law makes us friends, it shall be so far forth friendly maintained all by helping Baptista's eldest daughter to a husband we set his youngest free for a husband, and then have to't a fresh. Sweet Bianca! Happy man be his dole! He that runs fastest gets the ring. How say you, Signior Gremio? GREMIO I am agreed; and would I had given him the best horse in Padua to begin his wooing that would thoroughly woo her, wed her and bed her and rid the house of her! Come on. [Exeunt GREMIO and HORTENSIO] TRANIO I pray, sir, tell me, is it possible That love should of a sudden take such hold? LUCENTIO O Tranio, till I found it to be true, I never thought it possible or likely; But see, while idly I stood looking on, I found the effect of love in idleness: And now in plainness do confess to thee, That art to me as secret and as dear As Anna to the queen of Carthage was, Tranio, I burn, I pine, I perish, Tranio, If I achieve not this young modest girl. Counsel me, Tranio, for I know thou canst; Assist me, Tranio, for I know thou wilt. TRANIO Master, it is no time to chide you now; Affection is not rated from the heart: If love have touch'd you, nought remains but so, 'Redime te captum quam queas minimo.' LUCENTIO Gramercies, lad, go forward; this contents: The rest will comfort, for thy counsel's sound. TRANIO Master, you look'd so longly on the maid, Perhaps you mark'd not what's the pith of all. LUCENTIO O yes, I saw sweet beauty in her face, Such as the daughter of Agenor had, That made great Jove to humble him to her hand. When with his knees he kiss'd the Cretan strand. TRANIO Saw you no more? mark'd you not how her sister Began to scold and raise up such a storm That mortal ears might hardly endure the din? LUCENTIO Tranio, I saw her coral lips to move And with her breath she did perfume the air: Sacred and sweet was all I saw in her. TRANIO Nay, then, 'tis time to stir him from his trance. I pray, awake, sir: if you love the maid, Bend thoughts and wits to achieve her. Thus it stands: Her eldest sister is so curst and shrewd That till the father rid his hands of her, Master, your love must live a maid at home; And therefore has he closely mew'd her up, Because she will not be annoy'd with suitors. LUCENTIO Ah, Tranio, what a cruel father's he! But art thou not advised, he took some care To get her cunning schoolmasters to instruct her? TRANIO Ay, marry, am I, sir; and now 'tis plotted. LUCENTIO I have it, Tranio. TRANIO Master, for my hand, Both our inventions meet and jump in one. LUCENTIO Tell me thine first. TRANIO You will be schoolmaster And undertake the teaching of the maid: That's your device. LUCENTIO It is: may it be done? TRANIO Not possible; for who shall bear your part, And be in Padua here Vincentio's son, Keep house and ply his book, welcome his friends, Visit his countrymen and banquet them? LUCENTIO Basta; content thee, for I have it full. We have not yet been seen in any house, Nor can we lie distinguish'd by our faces For man or master; then it follows thus; Thou shalt be master, Tranio, in my stead, Keep house and port and servants as I should: I will some other be, some Florentine, Some Neapolitan, or meaner man of Pisa. 'Tis hatch'd and shall be so: Tranio, at once Uncase thee; take my colour'd hat and cloak: When Biondello comes, he waits on thee; But I will charm him first to keep his tongue. TRANIO So had you need. In brief, sir, sith it your pleasure is, And I am tied to be obedient; For so your father charged me at our parting, 'Be serviceable to my son,' quoth he, Although I think 'twas in another sense; I am content to be Lucentio, Because so well I love Lucentio. LUCENTIO Tranio, be so, because Lucentio loves: And let me be a slave, to achieve that maid Whose sudden sight hath thrall'd my wounded eye. Here comes the rogue. [Enter BIONDELLO] Sirrah, where have you been? BIONDELLO Where have I been! Nay, how now! where are you? Master, has my fellow Tranio stolen your clothes? Or you stolen his? or both? pray, what's the news? LUCENTIO Sirrah, come hither: 'tis no time to jest, And therefore frame your manners to the time. Your fellow Tranio here, to save my life, Puts my apparel and my countenance on, And I for my escape have put on his; For in a quarrel since I came ashore I kill'd a man and fear I was descried: Wait you on him, I charge you, as becomes, While I make way from hence to save my life: You understand me? BIONDELLO I, sir! ne'er a whit. LUCENTIO And not a jot of Tranio in your mouth: Tranio is changed into Lucentio. BIONDELLO The better for him: would I were so too! TRANIO So could I, faith, boy, to have the next wish after, That Lucentio indeed had Baptista's youngest daughter. But, sirrah, not for my sake, but your master's, I advise You use your manners discreetly in all kind of companies: When I am alone, why, then I am Tranio; But in all places else your master Lucentio. LUCENTIO Tranio, let's go: one thing more rests, that thyself execute, to make one among these wooers: if thou ask me why, sufficeth, my reasons are both good and weighty. [Exeunt] [The presenters above speak] First Servant My lord, you nod; you do not mind the play. SLY Yes, by Saint Anne, do I. A good matter, surely: comes there any more of it? Page My lord, 'tis but begun. SLY 'Tis a very excellent piece of work, madam lady: would 'twere done! [They sit and mark] THE TAMING OF THE SHREW ACT I SCENE II Padua. Before HORTENSIO'S house. [Enter PETRUCHIO and his man GRUMIO] PETRUCHIO Verona, for a while I take my leave, To see my friends in Padua, but of all My best beloved and approved friend, Hortensio; and I trow this is his house. Here, sirrah Grumio; knock, I say. GRUMIO Knock, sir! whom should I knock? is there man has rebused your worship? PETRUCHIO Villain, I say, knock me here soundly. GRUMIO Knock you here, sir! why, sir, what am I, sir, that I should knock you here, sir? PETRUCHIO Villain, I say, knock me at this gate And rap me well, or I'll knock your knave's pate. GRUMIO My master is grown quarrelsome. I should knock you first, And then I know after who comes by the worst. PETRUCHIO Will it not be? Faith, sirrah, an you'll not knock, I'll ring it; I'll try how you can sol, fa, and sing it. [He wrings him by the ears] GRUMIO Help, masters, help! my master is mad. PETRUCHIO Now, knock when I bid you, sirrah villain! [Enter HORTENSIO] HORTENSIO How now! what's the matter? My old friend Grumio! and my good friend Petruchio! How do you all at Verona? PETRUCHIO Signior Hortensio, come you to part the fray? 'Con tutto il cuore, ben trovato,' may I say. HORTENSIO 'Alla nostra casa ben venuto, molto honorato signor mio Petruchio.' Rise, Grumio, rise: we will compound this quarrel. GRUMIO Nay, 'tis no matter, sir, what he 'leges in Latin. if this be not a lawful case for me to leave his service, look you, sir, he bid me knock him and rap him soundly, sir: well, was it fit for a servant to use his master so, being perhaps, for aught I see, two and thirty, a pip out? Whom would to God I had well knock'd at first, Then had not Grumio come by the worst. PETRUCHIO A senseless villain! Good Hortensio, I bade the rascal knock upon your gate And could not get him for my heart to do it. GRUMIO Knock at the gate! O heavens! Spake you not these words plain, 'Sirrah, knock me here, rap me here, knock me well, and knock me soundly'? And come you now with, 'knocking at the gate'? PETRUCHIO Sirrah, be gone, or talk not, I advise you. HORTENSIO Petruchio, patience; I am Grumio's pledge: Why, this's a heavy chance 'twixt him and you, Your ancient, trusty, pleasant servant Grumio. And tell me now, sweet friend, what happy gale Blows you to Padua here from old Verona? PETRUCHIO Such wind as scatters young men through the world, To seek their fortunes farther than at home Where small experience grows. But in a few, Signior Hortensio, thus it stands with me: Antonio, my father, is deceased; And I have thrust myself into this maze, Haply to wive and thrive as best I may: Crowns in my purse I have and goods at home, And so am come abroad to see the world. HORTENSIO Petruchio, shall I then come roundly to thee And wish thee to a shrewd ill-favour'd wife? Thou'ldst thank me but a little for my counsel: And yet I'll promise thee she shall be rich And very rich: but thou'rt too much my friend, And I'll not wish thee to her. PETRUCHIO Signior Hortensio, 'twixt such friends as we Few words suffice; and therefore, if thou know One rich enough to be Petruchio's wife, As wealth is burden of my wooing dance, Be she as foul as was Florentius' love, As old as Sibyl and as curst and shrewd As Socrates' Xanthippe, or a worse, She moves me not, or not removes, at least, Affection's edge in me, were she as rough As are the swelling Adriatic seas: I come to wive it wealthily in Padua; If wealthily, then happily in Padua. GRUMIO Nay, look you, sir, he tells you flatly what his mind is: Why give him gold enough and marry him to a puppet or an aglet-baby; or an old trot with ne'er a tooth in her head, though she have as many diseases as two and fifty horses: why, nothing comes amiss, so money comes withal. HORTENSIO Petruchio, since we are stepp'd thus far in, I will continue that I broach'd in jest. I can, Petruchio, help thee to a wife With wealth enough and young and beauteous, Brought up as best becomes a gentlewoman: Her only fault, and that is faults enough, Is that she is intolerable curst And shrewd and froward, so beyond all measure That, were my state far worser than it is, I would not wed her for a mine of gold. PETRUCHIO Hortensio, peace! thou know'st not gold's effect: Tell me her father's name and 'tis enough; For I will board her, though she chide as loud As thunder when the clouds in autumn crack. HORTENSIO Her father is Baptista Minola, An affable and courteous gentleman: Her name is Katharina Minola, Renown'd in Padua for her scolding tongue. PETRUCHIO I know her father, though I know not her; And he knew my deceased father well. I will not sleep, Hortensio, till I see her; And therefore let me be thus bold with you To give you over at this first encounter, Unless you will accompany me thither. GRUMIO I pray you, sir, let him go while the humour lasts. O' my word, an she knew him as well as I do, she would think scolding would do little good upon him: she may perhaps call him half a score knaves or so: why, that's nothing; an he begin once, he'll rail in his rope-tricks. I'll tell you what sir, an she stand him but a little, he will throw a figure in her face and so disfigure her with it that she shall have no more eyes to see withal than a cat. You know him not, sir. HORTENSIO Tarry, Petruchio, I must go with thee, For in Baptista's keep my treasure is: He hath the jewel of my life in hold, His youngest daughter, beautiful Binaca, And her withholds from me and other more, Suitors to her and rivals in my love, Supposing it a thing impossible, For those defects I have before rehearsed, That ever Katharina will be woo'd; Therefore this order hath Baptista ta'en, That none shall have access unto Bianca Till Katharina the curst have got a husband. GRUMIO Katharina the curst! A title for a maid of all titles the worst. HORTENSIO Now shall my friend Petruchio do me grace, And offer me disguised in sober robes To old Baptista as a schoolmaster Well seen in music, to instruct Bianca; That so I may, by this device, at least Have leave and leisure to make love to her And unsuspected court her by herself. GRUMIO Here's no knavery! See, to beguile the old folks, how the young folks lay their heads together! [Enter GREMIO, and LUCENTIO disguised] Master, master, look about you: who goes there, ha? HORTENSIO Peace, Grumio! it is the rival of my love. Petruchio, stand by a while. GRUMIO A proper stripling and an amorous! GREMIO O, very well; I have perused the note. Hark you, sir: I'll have them very fairly bound: All books of love, see that at any hand; And see you read no other lectures to her: You understand me: over and beside Signior Baptista's liberality, I'll mend it with a largess. Take your paper too, And let me have them very well perfumed For she is sweeter than perfume itself To whom they go to. What will you read to her? LUCENTIO Whate'er I read to her, I'll plead for you As for my patron, stand you so assured, As firmly as yourself were still in place: Yea, and perhaps with more successful words Than you, unless you were a scholar, sir. GREMIO O this learning, what a thing it is! GRUMIO O this woodcock, what an ass it is! PETRUCHIO Peace, sirrah! HORTENSIO Grumio, mum! God save you, Signior Gremio. GREMIO And you are well met, Signior Hortensio. Trow you whither I am going? To Baptista Minola. I promised to inquire carefully About a schoolmaster for the fair Bianca: And by good fortune I have lighted well On this young man, for learning and behavior Fit for her turn, well read in poetry And other books, good ones, I warrant ye. HORTENSIO 'Tis well; and I have met a gentleman Hath promised me to help me to another, A fine musician to instruct our mistress; So shall I no whit be behind in duty To fair Bianca, so beloved of me. GREMIO Beloved of me; and that my deeds shall prove. GRUMIO And that his bags shall prove. HORTENSIO Gremio, 'tis now no time to vent our love: Listen to me, and if you speak me fair, I'll tell you news indifferent good for either. Here is a gentleman whom by chance I met, Upon agreement from us to his liking, Will undertake to woo curst Katharina, Yea, and to marry her, if her dowry please. GREMIO So said, so done, is well. Hortensio, have you told him all her faults? PETRUCHIO I know she is an irksome brawling scold: If that be all, masters, I hear no harm. GREMIO No, say'st me so, friend? What countryman? PETRUCHIO Born in Verona, old Antonio's son: My father dead, my fortune lives for me; And I do hope good days and long to see. GREMIO O sir, such a life, with such a wife, were strange! But if you have a stomach, to't i' God's name: You shall have me assisting you in all. But will you woo this wild-cat? PETRUCHIO Will I live? GRUMIO Will he woo her? ay, or I'll hang her. PETRUCHIO Why came I hither but to that intent? Think you a little din can daunt mine ears? Have I not in my time heard lions roar? Have I not heard the sea puff'd up with winds Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat? Have I not heard great ordnance in the field, And heaven's artillery thunder in the skies? Have I not in a pitched battle heard Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets' clang? And do you tell me of a woman's tongue, That gives not half so great a blow to hear As will a chestnut in a farmer's fire? Tush, tush! fear boys with bugs. GRUMIO For he fears none. GREMIO Hortensio, hark: This gentleman is happily arrived, My mind presumes, for his own good and ours. HORTENSIO I promised we would be contributors And bear his charging of wooing, whatsoe'er. GREMIO And so we will, provided that he win her. GRUMIO I would I were as sure of a good dinner. [Enter TRANIO brave, and BIONDELLO] TRANIO Gentlemen, God save you. If I may be bold, Tell me, I beseech you, which is the readiest way To the house of Signior Baptista Minola? BIONDELLO He that has the two fair daughters: is't he you mean? TRANIO Even he, Biondello. GREMIO Hark you, sir; you mean not her to-- TRANIO Perhaps, him and her, sir: what have you to do? PETRUCHIO Not her that chides, sir, at any hand, I pray. TRANIO I love no chiders, sir. Biondello, let's away. LUCENTIO Well begun, Tranio. HORTENSIO Sir, a word ere you go; Are you a suitor to the maid you talk of, yea or no? TRANIO And if I be, sir, is it any offence? GREMIO No; if without more words you will get you hence. TRANIO Why, sir, I pray, are not the streets as free For me as for you? GREMIO But so is not she. TRANIO For what reason, I beseech you? GREMIO For this reason, if you'll know, That she's the choice love of Signior Gremio. HORTENSIO That she's the chosen of Signior Hortensio. TRANIO Softly, my masters! if you be gentlemen, Do me this right; hear me with patience. Baptista is a noble gentleman, To whom my father is not all unknown; And were his daughter fairer than she is, She may more suitors have and me for one. Fair Leda's daughter had a thousand wooers; Then well one more may fair Bianca have: And so she shall; Lucentio shall make one, Though Paris came in hope to speed alone. GREMIO What! this gentleman will out-talk us all. LUCENTIO Sir, give him head: I know he'll prove a jade. PETRUCHIO Hortensio, to what end are all these words? HORTENSIO Sir, let me be so bold as ask you, Did you yet ever see Baptista's daughter? TRANIO No, sir; but hear I do that he hath two, The one as famous for a scolding tongue As is the other for beauteous modesty. PETRUCHIO Sir, sir, the first's for me; let her go by. GREMIO Yea, leave that labour to great Hercules; And let it be more than Alcides' twelve. PETRUCHIO Sir, understand you this of me in sooth: The youngest daughter whom you hearken for Her father keeps from all access of suitors, And will not promise her to any man Until the elder sister first be wed: The younger then is free and not before. TRANIO If it be so, sir, that you are the man Must stead us all and me amongst the rest, And if you break the ice and do this feat, Achieve the elder, set the younger free For our access, whose hap shall be to have her Will not so graceless be to be ingrate. HORTENSIO Sir, you say well and well you do conceive; And since you do profess to be a suitor, You must, as we do, gratify this gentleman, To whom we all rest generally beholding. TRANIO Sir, I shall not be slack: in sign whereof, Please ye we may contrive this afternoon, And quaff carouses to our mistress' health, And do as adversaries do in law, Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends. GRUMIO | | O excellent motion! Fellows, let's be gone. BIONDELLO | HORTENSIO The motion's good indeed and be it so, Petruchio, I shall be your ben venuto. [Exeunt] THE TAMING OF THE SHREW ACT II SCENE I Padua. A room in BAPTISTA'S house. [Enter KATHARINA and BIANCA] BIANCA Good sister, wrong me not, nor wrong yourself, To make a bondmaid and a slave of me; That I disdain: but for these other gawds, Unbind my hands, I'll pull them off myself, Yea, all my raiment, to my petticoat; Or what you will command me will I do, So well I know my duty to my elders. KATHARINA Of all thy suitors, here I charge thee, tell Whom thou lovest best: see thou dissemble not. BIANCA Believe me, sister, of all the men alive I never yet beheld that special face Which I could fancy more than any other. KATHARINA Minion, thou liest. Is't not Hortensio? BIANCA If you affect him, sister, here I swear I'll plead for you myself, but you shall have him. KATHARINA O then, belike, you fancy riches more: You will have Gremio to keep you fair. BIANCA Is it for him you do envy me so? Nay then you jest, and now I well perceive You have but jested with me all this while: I prithee, sister Kate, untie my hands. KATHARINA If that be jest, then all the rest was so. [Strikes her] [Enter BAPTISTA] BAPTISTA Why, how now, dame! whence grows this insolence? Bianca, stand aside. Poor girl! she weeps. Go ply thy needle; meddle not with her. For shame, thou helding of a devilish spirit, Why dost thou wrong her that did ne'er wrong thee? When did she cross thee with a bitter word? KATHARINA Her silence flouts me, and I'll be revenged. [Flies after BIANCA] BAPTISTA What, in my sight? Bianca, get thee in. [Exit BIANCA] KATHARINA What, will you not suffer me? Nay, now I see She is your treasure, she must have a husband; I must dance bare-foot on her wedding day And for your love to her lead apes in hell. Talk not to me: I will go sit and weep Till I can find occasion of revenge. [Exit] BAPTISTA Was ever gentleman thus grieved as I? But who comes here? [Enter GREMIO, LUCENTIO in the habit of a mean man; PETRUCHIO, with HORTENSIO as a musician; and TRANIO, with BIONDELLO bearing a lute and books] GREMIO Good morrow, neighbour Baptista. BAPTISTA Good morrow, neighbour Gremio. God save you, gentlemen! PETRUCHIO And you, good sir! Pray, have you not a daughter Call'd Katharina, fair and virtuous? BAPTISTA I have a daughter, sir, called Katharina. GREMIO You are too blunt: go to it orderly. PETRUCHIO You wrong me, Signior Gremio: give me leave. I am a gentleman of Verona, sir, That, hearing of her beauty and her wit, Her affability and bashful modesty, Her wondrous qualities and mild behavior, Am bold to show myself a forward guest Within your house, to make mine eye the witness Of that report which I so oft have heard. And, for an entrance to my entertainment, I do present you with a man of mine, [Presenting HORTENSIO] Cunning in music and the mathematics, To instruct her fully in those sciences, Whereof I know she is not ignorant: Accept of him, or else you do me wrong: His name is Licio, born in Mantua. BAPTISTA You're welcome, sir; and he, for your good sake. But for my daughter Katharina, this I know, She is not for your turn, the more my grief. PETRUCHIO I see you do not mean to part with her, Or else you like not of my company. BAPTISTA Mistake me not; I speak but as I find. Whence are you, sir? what may I call your name? PETRUCHIO Petruchio is my name; Antonio's son, A man well known throughout all Italy. BAPTISTA I know him well: you are welcome for his sake. GREMIO Saving your tale, Petruchio, I pray, Let us, that are poor petitioners, speak too: Baccare! you are marvellous forward. PETRUCHIO O, pardon me, Signior Gremio; I would fain be doing. GREMIO I doubt it not, sir; but you will curse your wooing. Neighbour, this is a gift very grateful, I am sure of it. To express the like kindness, myself, that have been more kindly beholding to you than any, freely give unto you this young scholar, [Presenting LUCENTIO] that hath been long studying at Rheims; as cunning in Greek, Latin, and other languages, as the other in music and mathematics: his name is Cambio; pray, accept his service. BAPTISTA A thousand thanks, Signior Gremio. Welcome, good Cambio. [To TRANIO] But, gentle sir, methinks you walk like a stranger: may I be so bold to know the cause of your coming? TRANIO Pardon me, sir, the boldness is mine own, That, being a stranger in this city here, Do make myself a suitor to your daughter, Unto Bianca, fair and virtuous. Nor is your firm resolve unknown to me, In the preferment of the eldest sister. This liberty is all that I request, That, upon knowledge of my parentage, I may have welcome 'mongst the rest that woo And free access and favour as the rest: And, toward the education of your daughters, I here bestow a simple instrument, And this small packet of Greek and Latin books: If you accept them, then their worth is great. BAPTISTA Lucentio is your name; of whence, I pray? TRANIO Of Pisa, sir; son to Vincentio. BAPTISTA A mighty man of Pisa; by report I know him well: you are very welcome, sir, Take you the lute, and you the set of books; You shall go see your pupils presently. Holla, within! [Enter a Servant] Sirrah, lead these gentlemen To my daughters; and tell them both, These are their tutors: bid them use them well. [Exit Servant, with LUCENTIO and HORTENSIO, BIONDELLO following] We will go walk a little in the orchard, And then to dinner. You are passing welcome, And so I pray you all to think yourselves. PETRUCHIO Signior Baptista, my business asketh haste, And every day I cannot come to woo. You knew my father well, and in him me, Left solely heir to all his lands and goods, Which I have better'd rather than decreased: Then tell me, if I get your daughter's love, What dowry shall I have with her to wife? BAPTISTA After my death the one half of my lands, And in possession twenty thousand crowns. PETRUCHIO And, for that dowry, I'll assure her of Her widowhood, be it that she survive me, In all my lands and leases whatsoever: Let specialties be therefore drawn between us, That covenants may be kept on either hand. BAPTISTA Ay, when the special thing is well obtain'd, That is, her love; for that is all in all. PETRUCHIO Why, that is nothing: for I tell you, father, I am as peremptory as she proud-minded; And where two raging fires meet together They do consume the thing that feeds their fury: Though little fire grows great with little wind, Yet extreme gusts will blow out fire and all: So I to her and so she yields to me; For I am rough and woo not like a babe. BAPTISTA Well mayst thou woo, and happy be thy speed! But be thou arm'd for some unhappy words. PETRUCHIO Ay, to the proof; as mountains are for winds, That shake not, though they blow perpetually. [Re-enter HORTENSIO, with his head broke] BAPTISTA How now, my friend! why dost thou look so pale? HORTENSIO For fear, I promise you, if I look pale. BAPTISTA What, will my daughter prove a good musician? HORTENSIO I think she'll sooner prove a soldier Iron may hold with her, but never lutes. BAPTISTA Why, then thou canst not break her to the lute? HORTENSIO Why, no; for she hath broke the lute to me. I did but tell her she mistook her frets, And bow'd her hand to teach her fingering; When, with a most impatient devilish spirit, 'Frets, call you these?' quoth she; 'I'll fume with them:' And, with that word, she struck me on the head, And through the instrument my pate made way; And there I stood amazed for a while, As on a pillory, looking through the lute; While she did call me rascal fiddler And twangling Jack; with twenty such vile terms, As had she studied to misuse me so. PETRUCHIO Now, by the world, it is a lusty wench; I love her ten times more than e'er I did: O, how I long to have some chat with her! BAPTISTA Well, go with me and be not so discomfited: Proceed in practise with my younger daughter; She's apt to learn and thankful for good turns. Signior Petruchio, will you go with us, Or shall I send my daughter Kate to you? PETRUCHIO I pray you do. [Exeunt all but PETRUCHIO] I will attend her here, And woo her with some spirit when she comes. Say that she rail; why then I'll tell her plain She sings as sweetly as a nightingale: Say that she frown, I'll say she looks as clear As morning roses newly wash'd with dew: Say she be mute and will not speak a word; Then I'll commend her volubility, And say she uttereth piercing eloquence: If she do bid me pack, I'll give her thanks, As though she bid me stay by her a week: If she deny to wed, I'll crave the day When I shall ask the banns and when be married. But here she comes; and now, Petruchio, speak. [Enter KATHARINA] Good morrow, Kate; for that's your name, I hear. KATHARINA Well have you heard, but something hard of hearing: They call me Katharina that do talk of me. PETRUCHIO You lie, in faith; for you are call'd plain Kate, And bonny Kate and sometimes Kate the curst; But Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom Kate of Kate Hall, my super-dainty Kate, For dainties are all Kates, and therefore, Kate, Take this of me, Kate of my consolation; Hearing thy mildness praised in every town, Thy virtues spoke of, and thy beauty sounded, Yet not so deeply as to thee belongs, Myself am moved to woo thee for my wife. KATHARINA Moved! in good time: let him that moved you hither Remove you hence: I knew you at the first You were a moveable. PETRUCHIO Why, what's a moveable? KATHARINA A join'd-stool. PETRUCHIO Thou hast hit it: come, sit on me. KATHARINA Asses are made to bear, and so are you. PETRUCHIO Women are made to bear, and so are you. KATHARINA No such jade as you, if me you mean. PETRUCHIO Alas! good Kate, I will not burden thee; For, knowing thee to be but young and light-- KATHARINA Too light for such a swain as you to catch; And yet as heavy as my weight should be. PETRUCHIO Should be! should--buzz! KATHARINA Well ta'en, and like a buzzard. PETRUCHIO O slow-wing'd turtle! shall a buzzard take thee? KATHARINA Ay, for a turtle, as he takes a buzzard. PETRUCHIO Come, come, you wasp; i' faith, you are too angry. KATHARINA If I be waspish, best beware my sting. PETRUCHIO My remedy is then, to pluck it out. KATHARINA Ay, if the fool could find it where it lies, PETRUCHIO Who knows not where a wasp does wear his sting? In his tail. KATHARINA In his tongue. PETRUCHIO Whose tongue? KATHARINA Yours, if you talk of tails: and so farewell. PETRUCHIO What, with my tongue in your tail? nay, come again, Good Kate; I am a gentleman. KATHARINA That I'll try. [She strikes him] PETRUCHIO I swear I'll cuff you, if you strike again. KATHARINA So may you lose your arms: If you strike me, you are no gentleman; And if no gentleman, why then no arms. PETRUCHIO A herald, Kate? O, put me in thy books! KATHARINA What is your crest? a coxcomb? PETRUCHIO A combless cock, so Kate will be my hen. KATHARINA No cock of mine; you crow too like a craven. PETRUCHIO Nay, come, Kate, come; you must not look so sour. KATHARINA It is my fashion, when I see a crab. PETRUCHIO Why, here's no crab; and therefore look not sour. KATHARINA There is, there is. PETRUCHIO Then show it me. KATHARINA Had I a glass, I would. PETRUCHIO What, you mean my face? KATHARINA Well aim'd of such a young one. PETRUCHIO Now, by Saint George, I am too young for you. KATHARINA Yet you are wither'd. PETRUCHIO 'Tis with cares. KATHARINA I care not. PETRUCHIO Nay, hear you, Kate: in sooth you scape not so. KATHARINA I chafe you, if I tarry: let me go. PETRUCHIO No, not a whit: I find you passing gentle. 'Twas told me you were rough and coy and sullen, And now I find report a very liar; For thou are pleasant, gamesome, passing courteous, But slow in speech, yet sweet as spring-time flowers: Thou canst not frown, thou canst not look askance, Nor bite the lip, as angry wenches will, Nor hast thou pleasure to be cross in talk, But thou with mildness entertain'st thy wooers, With gentle conference, soft and affable. Why does the world report that Kate doth limp? O slanderous world! Kate like the hazel-twig Is straight and slender and as brown in hue As hazel nuts and sweeter than the kernels. O, let me see thee walk: thou dost not halt. KATHARINA Go, fool, and whom thou keep'st command. PETRUCHIO Did ever Dian so become a grove As Kate this chamber with her princely gait? O, be thou Dian, and let her be Kate; And then let Kate be chaste and Dian sportful! KATHARINA Where did you study all this goodly speech? PETRUCHIO It is extempore, from my mother-wit. KATHARINA A witty mother! witless else her son. PETRUCHIO Am I not wise? KATHARINA Yes; keep you warm. PETRUCHIO Marry, so I mean, sweet Katharina, in thy bed: And therefore, setting all this chat aside, Thus in plain terms: your father hath consented That you shall be my wife; your dowry 'greed on; And, Will you, nill you, I will marry you. Now, Kate, I am a husband for your turn; For, by this light, whereby I see thy beauty, Thy beauty, that doth make me like thee well, Thou must be married to no man but me; For I am he am born to tame you Kate, And bring you from a wild Kate to a Kate Conformable as other household Kates. Here comes your father: never make denial; I must and will have Katharina to my wife. [Re-enter BAPTISTA, GREMIO, and TRANIO] BAPTISTA Now, Signior Petruchio, how speed you with my daughter? PETRUCHIO How but well, sir? how but well? It were impossible I should speed amiss. BAPTISTA Why, how now, daughter Katharina! in your dumps? KATHARINA Call you me daughter? now, I promise you You have show'd a tender fatherly regard, To wish me wed to one half lunatic; A mad-cup ruffian and a swearing Jack, That thinks with oaths to face the matter out. PETRUCHIO Father, 'tis thus: yourself and all the world, That talk'd of her, have talk'd amiss of her: If she be curst, it is for policy, For she's not froward, but modest as the dove; She is not hot, but temperate as the morn; For patience she will prove a second Grissel, And Roman Lucrece for her chastity: And to conclude, we have 'greed so well together, That upon Sunday is the wedding-day. KATHARINA I'll see thee hang'd on Sunday first. GREMIO Hark, Petruchio; she says she'll see thee hang'd first. TRANIO Is this your speeding? nay, then, good night our part! PETRUCHIO Be patient, gentlemen; I choose her for myself: If she and I be pleased, what's that to you? 'Tis bargain'd 'twixt us twain, being alone, That she shall still be curst in company. I tell you, 'tis incredible to believe How much she loves me: O, the kindest Kate! She hung about my neck; and kiss on kiss She vied so fast, protesting oath on oath, That in a twink she won me to her love. O, you are novices! 'tis a world to see, How tame, when men and women are alone, A meacock wretch can make the curstest shrew. Give me thy hand, Kate: I will unto Venice, To buy apparel 'gainst the wedding-day. Provide the feast, father, and bid the guests; I will be sure my Katharina shall be fine. BAPTISTA I know not what to say: but give me your hands; God send you joy, Petruchio! 'tis a match. GREMIO | | Amen, say we: we will be witnesses. TRANIO | PETRUCHIO Father, and wife, and gentlemen, adieu; I will to Venice; Sunday comes apace: We will have rings and things and fine array; And kiss me, Kate, we will be married o'Sunday. [Exeunt PETRUCHIO and KATHARINA severally] GREMIO Was ever match clapp'd up so suddenly? BAPTISTA Faith, gentlemen, now I play a merchant's part, And venture madly on a desperate mart. TRANIO 'Twas a commodity lay fretting by you: 'Twill bring you gain, or perish on the seas. BAPTISTA The gain I seek is, quiet in the match. GREMIO No doubt but he hath got a quiet catch. But now, Baptists, to your younger daughter: Now is the day we long have looked for: I am your neighbour, and was suitor first. TRANIO And I am one that love Bianca more Than words can witness, or your thoughts can guess. GREMIO Youngling, thou canst not love so dear as I. TRANIO Graybeard, thy love doth freeze. GREMIO But thine doth fry. Skipper, stand back: 'tis age that nourisheth. TRANIO But youth in ladies' eyes that flourisheth. BAPTISTA Content you, gentlemen: I will compound this strife: 'Tis deeds must win the prize; and he of both That can assure my daughter greatest dower Shall have my Bianca's love. Say, Signior Gremio, What can you assure her? GREMIO First, as you know, my house within the city Is richly furnished with plate and gold; Basins and ewers to lave her dainty hands; My hangings all of Tyrian tapestry; In ivory coffers I have stuff'd my crowns; In cypress chests my arras counterpoints, Costly apparel, tents, and canopies, Fine linen, Turkey cushions boss'd with pearl, Valance of Venice gold in needlework, Pewter and brass and all things that belong To house or housekeeping: then, at my farm I have a hundred milch-kine to the pail, Sixscore fat oxen standing in my stalls, And all things answerable to this portion. Myself am struck in years, I must confess; And if I die to-morrow, this is hers, If whilst I live she will be only mine. TRANIO That 'only' came well in. Sir, list to me: I am my father's heir and only son: If I may have your daughter to my wife, I'll leave her houses three or four as good, Within rich Pisa walls, as any one Old Signior Gremio has in Padua; Besides two thousand ducats by the year Of fruitful land, all which shall be her jointure. What, have I pinch'd you, Signior Gremio? GREMIO Two thousand ducats by the year of land! My land amounts not to so much in all: That she shall have; besides an argosy That now is lying in Marseilles' road. What, have I choked you with an argosy? TRANIO Gremio, 'tis known my father hath no less Than three great argosies; besides two galliases, And twelve tight galleys: these I will assure her, And twice as much, whate'er thou offer'st next. GREMIO Nay, I have offer'd all, I have no more; And she can have no more than all I have: If you like me, she shall have me and mine. TRANIO Why, then the maid is mine from all the world, By your firm promise: Gremio is out-vied. BAPTISTA I must confess your offer is the best; And, let your father make her the assurance, She is your own; else, you must pardon me, if you should die before him, where's her dower? TRANIO That's but a cavil: he is old, I young. GREMIO And may not young men die, as well as old? BAPTISTA Well, gentlemen, I am thus resolved: on Sunday next you know My daughter Katharina is to be married: Now, on the Sunday following, shall Bianca Be bride to you, if you this assurance; If not, Signior Gremio: And so, I take my leave, and thank you both. GREMIO Adieu, good neighbour. [Exit BAPTISTA] Now I fear thee not: Sirrah young gamester, your father were a fool To give thee all, and in his waning age Set foot under thy table: tut, a toy! An old Italian fox is not so kind, my boy. [Exit] TRANIO A vengeance on your crafty wither'd hide! Yet I have faced it with a card of ten. 'Tis in my head to do my master good: I see no reason but supposed Lucentio Must get a father, call'd 'supposed Vincentio;' And that's a wonder: fathers commonly Do get their children; but in this case of wooing, A child shall get a sire, if I fail not of my cunning. [Exit] THE TAMING OF THE SHREW ACT III SCENE I Padua. BAPTISTA'S house. [Enter LUCENTIO, HORTENSIO, and BIANCA] LUCENTIO Fiddler, forbear; you grow too forward, sir: Have you so soon forgot the entertainment Her sister Katharina welcomed you withal? HORTENSIO But, wrangling pedant, this is The patroness of heavenly harmony: Then give me leave to have prerogative; And when in music we have spent an hour, Your lecture shall have leisure for as much. LUCENTIO Preposterous ass, that never read so far To know the cause why music was ordain'd! Was it not to refresh the mind of man After his studies or his usual pain? Then give me leave to read philosophy, And while I pause, serve in your harmony. HORTENSIO Sirrah, I will not bear these braves of thine. BIANCA Why, gentlemen, you do me double wrong, To strive for that which resteth in my choice: I am no breeching scholar in the schools; I'll not be tied to hours nor 'pointed times, But learn my lessons as I please myself. And, to cut off all strife, here sit we down: Take you your instrument, play you the whiles; His lecture will be done ere you have tuned. HORTENSIO You'll leave his lecture when I am in tune? LUCENTIO That will be never: tune your instrument. BIANCA Where left we last? LUCENTIO Here, madam: 'Hic ibat Simois; hic est Sigeia tellus; Hic steterat Priami regia celsa senis.' BIANCA Construe them. LUCENTIO 'Hic ibat,' as I told you before, 'Simois,' I am Lucentio, 'hic est,' son unto Vincentio of Pisa, 'Sigeia tellus,' disguised thus to get your love; 'Hic steterat,' and that Lucentio that comes a-wooing, 'Priami,' is my man Tranio, 'regia,' bearing my port, 'celsa senis,' that we might beguile the old pantaloon. HORTENSIO Madam, my instrument's in tune. BIANCA Let's hear. O fie! the treble jars. LUCENTIO Spit in the hole, man, and tune again. BIANCA Now let me see if I can construe it: 'Hic ibat Simois,' I know you not, 'hic est Sigeia tellus,' I trust you not; 'Hic steterat Priami,' take heed he hear us not, 'regia,' presume not, 'celsa senis,' despair not. HORTENSIO Madam, 'tis now in tune. LUCENTIO All but the base. HORTENSIO The base is right; 'tis the base knave that jars. [Aside] How fiery and forward our pedant is! Now, for my life, the knave doth court my love: Pedascule, I'll watch you better yet. BIANCA In time I may believe, yet I mistrust. LUCENTIO Mistrust it not: for, sure, AEacides Was Ajax, call'd so from his grandfather. BIANCA I must believe my master; else, I promise you, I should be arguing still upon that doubt: But let it rest. Now, Licio, to you: Good masters, take it not unkindly, pray, That I have been thus pleasant with you both. HORTENSIO You may go walk, and give me leave a while: My lessons make no music in three parts. LUCENTIO Are you so formal, sir? well, I must wait, [Aside] And watch withal; for, but I be deceived, Our fine musician groweth amorous. HORTENSIO Madam, before you touch the instrument, To learn the order of my fingering, I must begin with rudiments of art; To teach you gamut in a briefer sort, More pleasant, pithy and effectual, Than hath been taught by any of my trade: And there it is in writing, fairly drawn. BIANCA Why, I am past my gamut long ago. HORTENSIO Yet read the gamut of Hortensio. BIANCA [Reads] ''Gamut' I am, the ground of all accord, 'A re,' to Plead Hortensio's passion; 'B mi,' Bianca, take him for thy lord, 'C fa ut,' that loves with all affection: 'D sol re,' one clef, two notes have I: 'E la mi,' show pity, or I die.' Call you this gamut? tut, I like it not: Old fashions please me best; I am not so nice, To change true rules for old inventions. [Enter a Servant] Servant Mistress, your father prays you leave your books And help to dress your sister's chamber up: You know to-morrow is the wedding-day. BIANCA Farewell, sweet masters both; I must be gone. [Exeunt BIANCA and Servant] LUCENTIO Faith, mistress, then I have no cause to stay. [Exit] HORTENSIO But I have cause to pry into this pedant: Methinks he looks as though he were in love: Yet if thy thoughts, Bianca, be so humble To cast thy wandering eyes on every stale, Seize thee that list: if once I find thee ranging, Hortensio will be quit with thee by changing. [Exit] THE TAMING OF THE SHREW ACT III SCENE II Padua. Before BAPTISTA'S house. [Enter BAPTISTA, GREMIO, TRANIO, KATHARINA, BIANCA, LUCENTIO, and others, attendants] BAPTISTA [To TRANIO] Signior Lucentio, this is the 'pointed day. That Katharina and Petruchio should be married, And yet we hear not of our son-in-law. What will be said? what mockery will it be, To want the bridegroom when the priest attends To speak the ceremonial rites of marriage! What says Lucentio to this shame of ours? KATHARINA No shame but mine: I must, forsooth, be forced To give my hand opposed against my heart Unto a mad-brain rudesby full of spleen; Who woo'd in haste and means to wed at leisure. I told you, I, he was a frantic fool, Hiding his bitter jests in blunt behavior: And, to be noted for a merry man, He'll woo a thousand, 'point the day of marriage, Make feasts, invite friends, and proclaim the banns; Yet never means to wed where he hath woo'd. Now must the world point at poor Katharina, And say, 'Lo, there is mad Petruchio's wife, If it would please him come and marry her!' TRANIO Patience, good Katharina, and Baptista too. Upon my life, Petruchio means but well, Whatever fortune stays him from his word: Though he be blunt, I know him passing wise; Though he be merry, yet withal he's honest. KATHARINA Would Katharina had never seen him though! [Exit weeping, followed by BIANCA and others] BAPTISTA Go, girl; I cannot blame thee now to weep; For such an injury would vex a very saint, Much more a shrew of thy impatient humour. [Enter BIONDELLO] BIONDELLO Master, master! news, old news, and such news as you never heard of! BAPTISTA Is it new and old too? how may that be? BIONDELLO Why, is it not news, to hear of Petruchio's coming? BAPTISTA Is he come? BIONDELLO Why, no, sir. BAPTISTA What then? BIONDELLO He is coming. BAPTISTA When will he be here? BIONDELLO When he stands where I am and sees you there. TRANIO But say, what to thine old news? BIONDELLO Why, Petruchio is coming in a new hat and an old jerkin, a pair of old breeches thrice turned, a pair of boots that have been candle-cases, one buckled, another laced, an old rusty sword ta'en out of the town-armory, with a broken hilt, and chapeless; with two broken points: his horse hipped with an old mothy saddle and stirrups of no kindred; besides, possessed with the glanders and like to mose in the chine; troubled with the lampass, infected with the fashions, full of wingdalls, sped with spavins, rayed with yellows, past cure of the fives, stark spoiled with the staggers, begnawn with the bots, swayed in the back and shoulder-shotten; near-legged before and with, a half-chequed bit and a head-stall of sheeps leather which, being restrained to keep him from stumbling, hath been often burst and now repaired with knots; one girth six time pieced and a woman's crupper of velure, which hath two letters for her name fairly set down in studs, and here and there pieced with packthread. BAPTISTA Who comes with him? BIONDELLO O, sir, his lackey, for all the world caparisoned like the horse; with a linen stock on one leg and a kersey boot-hose on the other, gartered with a red and blue list; an old hat and 'the humour of forty fancies' pricked in't for a feather: a monster, a very monster in apparel, and not like a Christian footboy or a gentleman's lackey. TRANIO 'Tis some odd humour pricks him to this fashion; Yet oftentimes he goes but mean-apparell'd. BAPTISTA I am glad he's come, howsoe'er he comes. BIONDELLO Why, sir, he comes not. BAPTISTA Didst thou not say he comes? BIONDELLO Who? that Petruchio came? BAPTISTA Ay, that Petruchio came. BIONDELLO No, sir, I say his horse comes, with him on his back. BAPTISTA Why, that's all one. BIONDELLO Nay, by Saint Jamy, I hold you a penny, A horse and a man Is more than one, And yet not many. [Enter PETRUCHIO and GRUMIO] PETRUCHIO Come, where be these gallants? who's at home? BAPTISTA You are welcome, sir. PETRUCHIO And yet I come not well. BAPTISTA And yet you halt not. TRANIO Not so well apparell'd As I wish you were. PETRUCHIO Were it better, I should rush in thus. But where is Kate? where is my lovely bride? How does my father? Gentles, methinks you frown: And wherefore gaze this goodly company, As if they saw some wondrous monument, Some comet or unusual prodigy? BAPTISTA Why, sir, you know this is your wedding-day: First were we sad, fearing you would not come; Now sadder, that you come so unprovided. Fie, doff this habit, shame to your estate, An eye-sore to our solemn festival! TRANIO And tells us, what occasion of import Hath all so long detain'd you from your wife, And sent you hither so unlike yourself? PETRUCHIO Tedious it were to tell, and harsh to hear: Sufficeth I am come to keep my word, Though in some part enforced to digress; Which, at more leisure, I will so excuse As you shall well be satisfied withal. But where is Kate? I stay too long from her: The morning wears, 'tis time we were at church. TRANIO See not your bride in these unreverent robes: Go to my chamber; Put on clothes of mine. PETRUCHIO Not I, believe me: thus I'll visit her. BAPTISTA But thus, I trust, you will not marry her. PETRUCHIO Good sooth, even thus; therefore ha' done with words: To me she's married, not unto my clothes: Could I repair what she will wear in me, As I can change these poor accoutrements, 'Twere well for Kate and better for myself. But what a fool am I to chat with you, When I should bid good morrow to my bride, And seal the title with a lovely kiss! [Exeunt PETRUCHIO and GRUMIO] TRANIO He hath some meaning in his mad attire: We will persuade him, be it possible, To put on better ere he go to church. BAPTISTA I'll after him, and see the event of this. [Exeunt BAPTISTA, GREMIO, and attendants] TRANIO But to her love concerneth us to add Her father's liking: which to bring to pass, As I before unparted to your worship, I am to get a man,--whate'er he be, It skills not much. we'll fit him to our turn,-- And he shall be Vincentio of Pisa; And make assurance here in Padua Of greater sums than I have promised. So shall you quietly enjoy your hope, And marry sweet Bianca with consent. LUCENTIO Were it not that my fellow-school-master Doth watch Bianca's steps so narrowly, 'Twere good, methinks, to steal our marriage; Which once perform'd, let all the world say no, I'll keep mine own, despite of all the world. TRANIO That by degrees we mean to look into, And watch our vantage in this business: We'll over-reach the greybeard, Gremio, The narrow-prying father, Minola, The quaint musician, amorous Licio; All for my master's sake, Lucentio. [Re-enter GREMIO] Signior Gremio, came you from the church? GREMIO As willingly as e'er I came from school. TRANIO And is the bride and bridegroom coming home? GREMIO A bridegroom say you? 'tis a groom indeed, A grumbling groom, and that the girl shall find. TRANIO Curster than she? why, 'tis impossible. GREMIO Why he's a devil, a devil, a very fiend. TRANIO Why, she's a devil, a devil, the devil's dam. GREMIO Tut, she's a lamb, a dove, a fool to him! I'll tell you, Sir Lucentio: when the priest Should ask, if Katharina should be his wife, 'Ay, by gogs-wouns,' quoth he; and swore so loud, That, all-amazed, the priest let fall the book; And, as he stoop'd again to take it up, The mad-brain'd bridegroom took him such a cuff That down fell priest and book and book and priest: 'Now take them up,' quoth he, 'if any list.' TRANIO What said the wench when he rose again? GREMIO Trembled and shook; for why, he stamp'd and swore, As if the vicar meant to cozen him. But after many ceremonies done, He calls for wine: 'A health!' quoth he, as if He had been aboard, carousing to his mates After a storm; quaff'd off the muscadel And threw the sops all in the sexton's face; Having no other reason But that his beard grew thin and hungerly And seem'd to ask him sops as he was drinking. This done, he took the bride about the neck And kiss'd her lips with such a clamorous smack That at the parting all the church did echo: And I seeing this came thence for very shame; And after me, I know, the rout is coming. Such a mad marriage never was before: Hark, hark! I hear the minstrels play. [Music] [Re-enter PETRUCHIO, KATHARINA, BIANCA, BAPTISTA, HORTENSIO, GRUMIO, and Train] PETRUCHIO Gentlemen and friends, I thank you for your pains: I know you think to dine with me to-day, And have prepared great store of wedding cheer; But so it is, my haste doth call me hence, And therefore here I mean to take my leave. BAPTISTA Is't possible you will away to-night? PETRUCHIO I must away to-day, before night come: Make it no wonder; if you knew my business, You would entreat me rather go than stay. And, honest company, I thank you all, That have beheld me give away myself To this most patient, sweet and virtuous wife: Dine with my father, drink a health to me; For I must hence; and farewell to you all. TRANIO Let us entreat you stay till after dinner. PETRUCHIO It may not be. GREMIO Let me entreat you. PETRUCHIO It cannot be. KATHARINA Let me entreat you. PETRUCHIO I am content. KATHARINA Are you content to stay? PETRUCHIO I am content you shall entreat me stay; But yet not stay, entreat me how you can. KATHARINA Now, if you love me, stay. PETRUCHIO Grumio, my horse. GRUMIO Ay, sir, they be ready: the oats have eaten the horses. KATHARINA Nay, then, Do what thou canst, I will not go to-day; No, nor to-morrow, not till I please myself. The door is open, sir; there lies your way; You may be jogging whiles your boots are green; For me, I'll not be gone till I please myself: 'Tis like you'll prove a jolly surly groom, That take it on you at the first so roundly. PETRUCHIO O Kate, content thee; prithee, be not angry. KATHARINA I will be angry: what hast thou to do? Father, be quiet; he shall stay my leisure. GREMIO Ay, marry, sir, now it begins to work. KATARINA Gentlemen, forward to the bridal dinner: I see a woman may be made a fool, If she had not a spirit to resist. PETRUCHIO They shall go forward, Kate, at thy command. Obey the bride, you that attend on her; Go to the feast, revel and domineer, Carouse full measure to her maidenhead, Be mad and merry, or go hang yourselves: But for my bonny Kate, she must with me. Nay, look not big, nor stamp, nor stare, nor fret; I will be master of what is mine own: She is my goods, my chattels; she is my house, My household stuff, my field, my barn, My horse, my ox, my ass, my any thing; And here she stands, touch her whoever dare; I'll bring mine action on the proudest he That stops my way in Padua. Grumio, Draw forth thy weapon, we are beset with thieves; Rescue thy mistress, if thou be a man. Fear not, sweet wench, they shall not touch thee, Kate: I'll buckler thee against a million. [Exeunt PETRUCHIO, KATHARINA, and GRUMIO] BAPTISTA Nay, let them go, a couple of quiet ones. GREMIO Went they not quickly, I should die with laughing. TRANIO Of all mad matches never was the like. LUCENTIO Mistress, what's your opinion of your sister? BIANCA That, being mad herself, she's madly mated. GREMIO I warrant him, Petruchio is Kated. BAPTISTA Neighbours and friends, though bride and bridegroom wants For to supply the places at the table, You know there wants no junkets at the feast. Lucentio, you shall supply the bridegroom's place: And let Bianca take her sister's room. TRANIO Shall sweet Bianca practise how to bride it? BAPTISTA She shall, Lucentio. Come, gentlemen, let's go. [Exeunt] THE TAMING OF THE SHREW ACT IV SCENE I PETRUCHIO'S country house. [Enter GRUMIO] GRUMIO Fie, fie on all tired jades, on all mad masters, and all foul ways! Was ever man so beaten? was ever man so rayed? was ever man so weary? I am sent before to make a fire, and they are coming after to warm them. Now, were not I a little pot and soon hot, my very lips might freeze to my teeth, my tongue to the roof of my mouth, my heart in my belly, ere I should come by a fire to thaw me: but I, with blowing the fire, shall warm myself; for, considering the weather, a taller man than I will take cold. Holla, ho! Curtis. [Enter CURTIS] CURTIS Who is that calls so coldly? GRUMIO A piece of ice: if thou doubt it, thou mayst slide from my shoulder to my heel with no greater a run but my head and my neck. A fire good Curtis. CURTIS Is my master and his wife coming, Grumio? GRUMIO O, ay, Curtis, ay: and therefore fire, fire; cast on no water. CURTIS Is she so hot a shrew as she's reported? GRUMIO She was, good Curtis, before this frost: but, thou knowest, winter tames man, woman and beast; for it hath tamed my old master and my new mistress and myself, fellow Curtis. CURTIS Away, you three-inch fool! I am no beast. GRUMIO Am I but three inches? why, thy horn is a foot; and so long am I at the least. But wilt thou make a fire, or shall I complain on thee to our mistress, whose hand, she being now at hand, thou shalt soon feel, to thy cold comfort, for being slow in thy hot office? CURTIS I prithee, good Grumio, tell me, how goes the world? GRUMIO A cold world, Curtis, in every office but thine; and therefore fire: do thy duty, and have thy duty; for my master and mistress are almost frozen to death. CURTIS There's fire ready; and therefore, good Grumio, the news. GRUMIO Why, 'Jack, boy! ho! boy!' and as much news as will thaw. CURTIS Come, you are so full of cony-catching! GRUMIO Why, therefore fire; for I have caught extreme cold. Where's the cook? is supper ready, the house trimmed, rushes strewed, cobwebs swept; the serving-men in their new fustian, their white stockings, and every officer his wedding-garment on? Be the jacks fair within, the jills fair without, the carpets laid, and every thing in order? CURTIS All ready; and therefore, I pray thee, news. GRUMIO First, know, my horse is tired; my master and mistress fallen out. CURTIS How? GRUMIO Out of their saddles into the dirt; and thereby hangs a tale. CURTIS Let's ha't, good Grumio. GRUMIO Lend thine ear. CURTIS Here. GRUMIO There. [Strikes him] CURTIS This is to feel a tale, not to hear a tale. GRUMIO And therefore 'tis called a sensible tale: and this cuff was but to knock at your ear, and beseech listening. Now I begin: Imprimis, we came down a foul hill, my master riding behind my mistress,-- CURTIS Both of one horse? GRUMIO What's that to thee? CURTIS Why, a horse. GRUMIO Tell thou the tale: but hadst thou not crossed me, thou shouldst have heard how her horse fell and she under her horse; thou shouldst have heard in how miry a place, how she was bemoiled, how he left her with the horse upon her, how he beat me because her horse stumbled, how she waded through the dirt to pluck him off me, how he swore, how she prayed, that never prayed before, how I cried, how the horses ran away, how her bridle was burst, how I lost my crupper, with many things of worthy memory, which now shall die in oblivion and thou return unexperienced to thy grave. CURTIS By this reckoning he is more shrew than she. GRUMIO Ay; and that thou and the proudest of you all shall find when he comes home. But what talk I of this? Call forth Nathaniel, Joseph, Nicholas, Philip, Walter, Sugarsop and the rest: let their heads be sleekly combed their blue coats brushed and their garters of an indifferent knit: let them curtsy with their left legs and not presume to touch a hair of my master's horse-tail till they kiss their hands. Are they all ready? CURTIS They are. GRUMIO Call them forth. CURTIS Do you hear, ho? you must meet my master to countenance my mistress. GRUMIO Why, she hath a face of her own. CURTIS Who knows not that? GRUMIO Thou, it seems, that calls for company to countenance her. CURTIS I call them forth to credit her. GRUMIO Why, she comes to borrow nothing of them. [Enter four or five Serving-men] NATHANIEL Welcome home, Grumio! PHILIP How now, Grumio! JOSEPH What, Grumio! NICHOLAS Fellow Grumio! NATHANIEL How now, old lad? GRUMIO Welcome, you;--how now, you;-- what, you;--fellow, you;--and thus much for greeting. Now, my spruce companions, is all ready, and all things neat? NATHANIEL All things is ready. How near is our master? GRUMIO E'en at hand, alighted by this; and therefore be not--Cock's passion, silence! I hear my master. [Enter PETRUCHIO and KATHARINA] PETRUCHIO Where be these knaves? What, no man at door To hold my stirrup nor to take my horse! Where is Nathaniel, Gregory, Philip? ALL SERVING-MEN Here, here, sir; here, sir. PETRUCHIO Here, sir! here, sir! here, sir! here, sir! You logger-headed and unpolish'd grooms! What, no attendance? no regard? no duty? Where is the foolish knave I sent before? GRUMIO Here, sir; as foolish as I was before. PETRUCHIO You peasant swain! you whoreson malt-horse drudge! Did I not bid thee meet me in the park, And bring along these rascal knaves with thee? GRUMIO Nathaniel's coat, sir, was not fully made, And Gabriel's pumps were all unpink'd i' the heel; There was no link to colour Peter's hat, And Walter's dagger was not come from sheathing: There were none fine but Adam, Ralph, and Gregory; The rest were ragged, old, and beggarly; Yet, as they are, here are they come to meet you. PETRUCHIO Go, rascals, go, and fetch my supper in. [Exeunt Servants] [Singing] Where is the life that late I led-- Where are those--Sit down, Kate, and welcome.-- Sound, sound, sound, sound! [Re-enter Servants with supper] Why, when, I say? Nay, good sweet Kate, be merry. Off with my boots, you rogues! you villains, when? [Sings] It was the friar of orders grey, As he forth walked on his way:-- Out, you rogue! you pluck my foot awry: Take that, and mend the plucking off the other. [Strikes him] Be merry, Kate. Some water, here; what, ho! Where's my spaniel Troilus? Sirrah, get you hence, And bid my cousin Ferdinand come hither: One, Kate, that you must kiss, and be acquainted with. Where are my slippers? Shall I have some water? [Enter one with water] Come, Kate, and wash, and welcome heartily. You whoreson villain! will you let it fall? [Strikes him] KATHARINA Patience, I pray you; 'twas a fault unwilling. PETRUCHIO A whoreson beetle-headed, flap-ear'd knave! Come, Kate, sit down; I know you have a stomach. Will you give thanks, sweet Kate; or else shall I? What's this? mutton? First Servant Ay. PETRUCHIO Who brought it? PETER I. PETRUCHIO 'Tis burnt; and so is all the meat. What dogs are these! Where is the rascal cook? How durst you, villains, bring it from the dresser, And serve it thus to me that love it not? Theretake it to you, trenchers, cups, and all; [Throws the meat, &c. about the stage] You heedless joltheads and unmanner'd slaves! What, do you grumble? I'll be with you straight. KATHARINA I pray you, husband, be not so disquiet: The meat was well, if you were so contented. PETRUCHIO I tell thee, Kate, 'twas burnt and dried away; And I expressly am forbid to touch it, For it engenders choler, planteth anger; And better 'twere that both of us did fast, Since, of ourselves, ourselves are choleric, Than feed it with such over-roasted flesh. Be patient; to-morrow 't shall be mended, And, for this night, we'll fast for company: Come, I will bring thee to thy bridal chamber. [Exeunt] [Re-enter Servants severally] NATHANIEL Peter, didst ever see the like? PETER He kills her in her own humour. [Re-enter CURTIS] GRUMIO Where is he? CURTIS In her chamber, making a sermon of continency to her; And rails, and swears, and rates, that she, poor soul, Knows not which way to stand, to look, to speak, And sits as one new-risen from a dream. Away, away! for he is coming hither. [Exeunt] [Re-enter PETRUCHIO] PETRUCHIO Thus have I politicly begun my reign, And 'tis my hope to end successfully. My falcon now is sharp and passing empty; And till she stoop she must not be full-gorged, For then she never looks upon her lure. Another way I have to man my haggard, To make her come and know her keeper's call, That is, to watch her, as we watch these kites That bate and beat and will not be obedient. She eat no meat to-day, nor none shall eat; Last night she slept not, nor to-night she shall not; As with the meat, some undeserved fault I'll find about the making of the bed; And here I'll fling the pillow, there the bolster, This way the coverlet, another way the sheets: Ay, and amid this hurly I intend That all is done in reverend care of her; And in conclusion she shall watch all night: And if she chance to nod I'll rail and brawl And with the clamour keep her still awake. This is a way to kill a wife with kindness; And thus I'll curb her mad and headstrong humour. He that knows better how to tame a shrew, Now let him speak: 'tis charity to show. [Exit] THE TAMING OF THE SHREW ACT IV SCENE II Padua. Before BAPTISTA'S house. [Enter TRANIO and HORTENSIO] TRANIO Is't possible, friend Licio, that Mistress Bianca Doth fancy any other but Lucentio? I tell you, sir, she bears me fair in hand. HORTENSIO Sir, to satisfy you in what I have said, Stand by and mark the manner of his teaching. [Enter BIANCA and LUCENTIO] LUCENTIO Now, mistress, profit you in what you read? BIANCA What, master, read you? first resolve me that. LUCENTIO I read that I profess, the Art to Love. BIANCA And may you prove, sir, master of your art! LUCENTIO While you, sweet dear, prove mistress of my heart! HORTENSIO Quick proceeders, marry! Now, tell me, I pray, You that durst swear at your mistress Bianca Loved none in the world so well as Lucentio. TRANIO O despiteful love! unconstant womankind! I tell thee, Licio, this is wonderful. HORTENSIO Mistake no more: I am not Licio, Nor a musician, as I seem to be; But one that scorn to live in this disguise, For such a one as leaves a gentleman, And makes a god of such a cullion: Know, sir, that I am call'd Hortensio. TRANIO Signior Hortensio, I have often heard Of your entire affection to Bianca; And since mine eyes are witness of her lightness, I will with you, if you be so contented, Forswear Bianca and her love for ever. HORTENSIO See, how they kiss and court! Signior Lucentio, Here is my hand, and here I firmly vow Never to woo her no more, but do forswear her, As one unworthy all the former favours That I have fondly flatter'd her withal. TRANIO And here I take the unfeigned oath, Never to marry with her though she would entreat: Fie on her! see, how beastly she doth court him! HORTENSIO Would all the world but he had quite forsworn! For me, that I may surely keep mine oath, I will be married to a wealthy widow, Ere three days pass, which hath as long loved me As I have loved this proud disdainful haggard. And so farewell, Signior Lucentio. Kindness in women, not their beauteous looks, Shall win my love: and so I take my leave, In resolution as I swore before. [Exit] TRANIO Mistress Bianca, bless you with such grace As 'longeth to a lover's blessed case! Nay, I have ta'en you napping, gentle love, And have forsworn you with Hortensio. BIANCA Tranio, you jest: but have you both forsworn me? TRANIO Mistress, we have. LUCENTIO Then we are rid of Licio. TRANIO I' faith, he'll have a lusty widow now, That shall be wood and wedded in a day. BIANCA God give him joy! TRANIO Ay, and he'll tame her. BIANCA He says so, Tranio. TRANIO Faith, he is gone unto the taming-school. BIANCA The taming-school! what, is there such a place? TRANIO Ay, mistress, and Petruchio is the master; That teacheth tricks eleven and twenty long, To tame a shrew and charm her chattering tongue. [Enter BIONDELLO] BIONDELLO O master, master, I have watch'd so long That I am dog-weary: but at last I spied An ancient angel coming down the hill, Will serve the turn. TRANIO What is he, Biondello? BIONDELLO Master, a mercatante, or a pedant, I know not what; but format in apparel, In gait and countenance surely like a father. LUCENTIO And what of him, Tranio? TRANIO If he be credulous and trust my tale, I'll make him glad to seem Vincentio, And give assurance to Baptista Minola, As if he were the right Vincentio Take in your love, and then let me alone. [Exeunt LUCENTIO and BIANCA] [Enter a Pedant] Pedant God save you, sir! TRANIO And you, sir! you are welcome. Travel you far on, or are you at the farthest? Pedant Sir, at the farthest for a week or two: But then up farther, and as for as Rome; And so to Tripoli, if God lend me life. TRANIO What countryman, I pray? Pedant Of Mantua. TRANIO Of Mantua, sir? marry, God forbid! And come to Padua, careless of your life? Pedant My life, sir! how, I pray? for that goes hard. TRANIO 'Tis death for any one in Mantua To come to Padua. Know you not the cause? Your ships are stay'd at Venice, and the duke, For private quarrel 'twixt your duke and him, Hath publish'd and proclaim'd it openly: 'Tis, marvel, but that you are but newly come, You might have heard it else proclaim'd about. Pedant Alas! sir, it is worse for me than so; For I have bills for money by exchange From Florence and must here deliver them. TRANIO Well, sir, to do you courtesy, This will I do, and this I will advise you: First, tell me, have you ever been at Pisa? Pedant Ay, sir, in Pisa have I often been, Pisa renowned for grave citizens. TRANIO Among them know you one Vincentio? Pedant I know him not, but I have heard of him; A merchant of incomparable wealth. TRANIO He is my father, sir; and, sooth to say, In countenance somewhat doth resemble you. BIONDELLO [Aside] As much as an apple doth an oyster, and all one. TRANIO To save your life in this extremity, This favour will I do you for his sake; And think it not the worst of an your fortunes That you are like to Sir Vincentio. His name and credit shall you undertake, And in my house you shall be friendly lodged: Look that you take upon you as you should; You understand me, sir: so shall you stay Till you have done your business in the city: If this be courtesy, sir, accept of it. Pedant O sir, I do; and will repute you ever The patron of my life and liberty. TRANIO Then go with me to make the matter good. This, by the way, I let you understand; my father is here look'd for every day, To pass assurance of a dower in marriage 'Twixt me and one Baptista's daughter here: In all these circumstances I'll instruct you: Go with me to clothe you as becomes you. [Exeunt] THE TAMING OF THE SHREW ACT IV SCENE III A room in PETRUCHIO'S house. [Enter KATHARINA and GRUMIO] GRUMIO No, no, forsooth; I dare not for my life. KATHARINA The more my wrong, the more his spite appears: What, did he marry me to famish me? Beggars, that come unto my father's door, Upon entreaty have a present aims; If not, elsewhere they meet with charity: But I, who never knew how to entreat, Nor never needed that I should entreat, Am starved for meat, giddy for lack of sleep, With oath kept waking and with brawling fed: And that which spites me more than all these wants, He does it under name of perfect love; As who should say, if I should sleep or eat, 'Twere deadly sickness or else present death. I prithee go and get me some repast; I care not what, so it be wholesome food. GRUMIO What say you to a neat's foot? KATHARINA 'Tis passing good: I prithee let me have it. GRUMIO I fear it is too choleric a meat. How say you to a fat tripe finely broil'd? KATHARINA I like it well: good Grumio, fetch it me. GRUMIO I cannot tell; I fear 'tis choleric. What say you to a piece of beef and mustard? KATHARINA A dish that I do love to feed upon. GRUMIO Ay, but the mustard is too hot a little. KATHARINA Why then, the beef, and let the mustard rest. GRUMIO Nay then, I will not: you shall have the mustard, Or else you get no beef of Grumio. KATHARINA Then both, or one, or any thing thou wilt. GRUMIO Why then, the mustard without the beef. KATHARINA Go, get thee gone, thou false deluding slave, [Beats him] That feed'st me with the very name of meat: Sorrow on thee and all the pack of you, That triumph thus upon my misery! Go, get thee gone, I say. [Enter PETRUCHIO and HORTENSIO with meat] PETRUCHIO How fares my Kate? What, sweeting, all amort? HORTENSIO Mistress, what cheer? KATHARINA Faith, as cold as can be. PETRUCHIO Pluck up thy spirits; look cheerfully upon me. Here love; thou see'st how diligent I am To dress thy meat myself and bring it thee: I am sure, sweet Kate, this kindness merits thanks. What, not a word? Nay, then thou lovest it not; And all my pains is sorted to no proof. Here, take away this dish. KATHARINA I pray you, let it stand. PETRUCHIO The poorest service is repaid with thanks; And so shall mine, before you touch the meat. KATHARINA I thank you, sir. HORTENSIO Signior Petruchio, fie! you are to blame. Come, mistress Kate, I'll bear you company. PETRUCHIO [Aside] Eat it up all, Hortensio, if thou lovest me. Much good do it unto thy gentle heart! Kate, eat apace: and now, my honey love, Will we return unto thy father's house And revel it as bravely as the best, With silken coats and caps and golden rings, With ruffs and cuffs and fardingales and things; With scarfs and fans and double change of bravery, With amber bracelets, beads and all this knavery. What, hast thou dined? The tailor stays thy leisure, To deck thy body with his ruffling treasure. [Enter Tailor] Come, tailor, let us see these ornaments; Lay forth the gown. [Enter Haberdasher] What news with you, sir? Haberdasher Here is the cap your worship did bespeak. PETRUCHIO Why, this was moulded on a porringer; A velvet dish: fie, fie! 'tis lewd and filthy: Why, 'tis a cockle or a walnut-shell, A knack, a toy, a trick, a baby's cap: Away with it! come, let me have a bigger. KATHARINA I'll have no bigger: this doth fit the time, And gentlewomen wear such caps as these PETRUCHIO When you are gentle, you shall have one too, And not till then. HORTENSIO [Aside] That will not be in haste. KATHARINA Why, sir, I trust I may have leave to speak; And speak I will; I am no child, no babe: Your betters have endured me say my mind, And if you cannot, best you stop your ears. My tongue will tell the anger of my heart, Or else my heart concealing it will break, And rather than it shall, I will be free Even to the uttermost, as I please, in words. PETRUCHIO Why, thou say'st true; it is a paltry cap, A custard-coffin, a bauble, a silken pie: I love thee well, in that thou likest it not. KATHARINA Love me or love me not, I like the cap; And it I will have, or I will have none. [Exit Haberdasher] PETRUCHIO Thy gown? why, ay: come, tailor, let us see't. O mercy, God! what masquing stuff is here? What's this? a sleeve? 'tis like a demi-cannon: What, up and down, carved like an apple-tart? Here's snip and nip and cut and slish and slash, Like to a censer in a barber's shop: Why, what, i' devil's name, tailor, call'st thou this? HORTENSIO [Aside] I see she's like to have neither cap nor gown. Tailor You bid me make it orderly and well, According to the fashion and the time. PETRUCHIO Marry, and did; but if you be remember'd, I did not bid you mar it to the time. Go, hop me over every kennel home, For you shall hop without my custom, sir: I'll none of it: hence! make your best of it. KATHARINA I never saw a better-fashion'd gown, More quaint, more pleasing, nor more commendable: Belike you mean to make a puppet of me. PETRUCHIO Why, true; he means to make a puppet of thee. Tailor She says your worship means to make a puppet of her. PETRUCHIO O monstrous arrogance! Thou liest, thou thread, thou thimble, Thou yard, three-quarters, half-yard, quarter, nail! Thou flea, thou nit, thou winter-cricket thou! Braved in mine own house with a skein of thread? Away, thou rag, thou quantity, thou remnant; Or I shall so be-mete thee with thy yard As thou shalt think on prating whilst thou livest! I tell thee, I, that thou hast marr'd her gown. Tailor Your worship is deceived; the gown is made Just as my master had direction: Grumio gave order how it should be done. GRUMIO I gave him no order; I gave him the stuff. Tailor But how did you desire it should be made? GRUMIO Marry, sir, with needle and thread. Tailor But did you not request to have it cut? GRUMIO Thou hast faced many things. Tailor I have. GRUMIO Face not me: thou hast braved many men; brave not me; I will neither be faced nor braved. I say unto thee, I bid thy master cut out the gown; but I did not bid him cut it to pieces: ergo, thou liest. Tailor Why, here is the note of the fashion to testify PETRUCHIO Read it. GRUMIO The note lies in's throat, if he say I said so. Tailor [Reads] 'Imprimis, a loose-bodied gown:' GRUMIO Master, if ever I said loose-bodied gown, sew me in the skirts of it, and beat me to death with a bottom of brown thread: I said a gown. PETRUCHIO Proceed. Tailor [Reads] 'With a small compassed cape:' GRUMIO I confess the cape. Tailor [Reads] 'With a trunk sleeve:' GRUMIO I confess two sleeves. Tailor [Reads] 'The sleeves curiously cut.' PETRUCHIO Ay, there's the villany. GRUMIO Error i' the bill, sir; error i' the bill. I commanded the sleeves should be cut out and sewed up again; and that I'll prove upon thee, though thy little finger be armed in a thimble. Tailor This is true that I say: an I had thee in place where, thou shouldst know it. GRUMIO I am for thee straight: take thou the bill, give me thy mete-yard, and spare not me. HORTENSIO God-a-mercy, Grumio! then he shall have no odds. PETRUCHIO Well, sir, in brief, the gown is not for me. GRUMIO You are i' the right, sir: 'tis for my mistress. PETRUCHIO Go, take it up unto thy master's use. GRUMIO Villain, not for thy life: take up my mistress' gown for thy master's use! PETRUCHIO Why, sir, what's your conceit in that? GRUMIO O, sir, the conceit is deeper than you think for: Take up my mistress' gown to his master's use! O, fie, fie, fie! PETRUCHIO [Aside] Hortensio, say thou wilt see the tailor paid. Go take it hence; be gone, and say no more. HORTENSIO Tailor, I'll pay thee for thy gown tomorrow: Take no unkindness of his hasty words: Away! I say; commend me to thy master. [Exit Tailor] PETRUCHIO Well, come, my Kate; we will unto your father's Even in these honest mean habiliments: Our purses shall be proud, our garments poor; For 'tis the mind that makes the body rich; And as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds, So honour peereth in the meanest habit. What is the jay more precious than the lark, Because his fathers are more beautiful? Or is the adder better than the eel, Because his painted skin contents the eye? O, no, good Kate; neither art thou the worse For this poor furniture and mean array. if thou account'st it shame. lay it on me; And therefore frolic: we will hence forthwith, To feast and sport us at thy father's house. Go, call my men, and let us straight to him; And bring our horses unto Long-lane end; There will we mount, and thither walk on foot Let's see; I think 'tis now some seven o'clock, And well we may come there by dinner-time. KATHARINA I dare assure you, sir, 'tis almost two; And 'twill be supper-time ere you come there. PETRUCHIO It shall be seven ere I go to horse: Look, what I speak, or do, or think to do, You are still crossing it. Sirs, let't alone: I will not go to-day; and ere I do, It shall be what o'clock I say it is. HORTENSIO [Aside] Why, so this gallant will command the sun. [Exeunt] THE TAMING OF THE SHREW ACT IV SCENE IV Padua. Before BAPTISTA'S house. [Enter TRANIO, and the Pedant dressed like VINCENTIO] TRANIO Sir, this is the house: please it you that I call? Pedant Ay, what else? and but I be deceived Signior Baptista may remember me, Near twenty years ago, in Genoa, Where we were lodgers at the Pegasus. TRANIO 'Tis well; and hold your own, in any case, With such austerity as 'longeth to a father. Pedant I warrant you. [Enter BIONDELLO] But, sir, here comes your boy; 'Twere good he were school'd. TRANIO Fear you not him. Sirrah Biondello, Now do your duty throughly, I advise you: Imagine 'twere the right Vincentio. BIONDELLO Tut, fear not me. TRANIO But hast thou done thy errand to Baptista? BIONDELLO I told him that your father was at Venice, And that you look'd for him this day in Padua. TRANIO Thou'rt a tall fellow: hold thee that to drink. Here comes Baptista: set your countenance, sir. [Enter BAPTISTA and LUCENTIO] Signior Baptista, you are happily met. [To the Pedant] Sir, this is the gentleman I told you of: I pray you stand good father to me now, Give me Bianca for my patrimony. Pedant Soft son! Sir, by your leave: having come to Padua To gather in some debts, my son Lucentio Made me acquainted with a weighty cause Of love between your daughter and himself: And, for the good report I hear of you And for the love he beareth to your daughter And she to him, to stay him not too long, I am content, in a good father's care, To have him match'd; and if you please to like No worse than I, upon some agreement Me shall you find ready and willing With one consent to have her so bestow'd; For curious I cannot be with you, Signior Baptista, of whom I hear so well. BAPTISTA Sir, pardon me in what I have to say: Your plainness and your shortness please me well. Right true it is, your son Lucentio here Doth love my daughter and she loveth him, Or both dissemble deeply their affections: And therefore, if you say no more than this, That like a father you will deal with him And pass my daughter a sufficient dower, The match is made, and all is done: Your son shall have my daughter with consent. TRANIO I thank you, sir. Where then do you know best We be affied and such assurance ta'en As shall with either part's agreement stand? BAPTISTA Not in my house, Lucentio; for, you know, Pitchers have ears, and I have many servants: Besides, old Gremio is hearkening still; And happily we might be interrupted. TRANIO Then at my lodging, an it like you: There doth my father lie; and there, this night, We'll pass the business privately and well. Send for your daughter by your servant here: My boy shall fetch the scrivener presently. The worst is this, that, at so slender warning, You are like to have a thin and slender pittance. BAPTISTA It likes me well. Biondello, hie you home, And bid Bianca make her ready straight; And, if you will, tell what hath happened, Lucentio's father is arrived in Padua, And how she's like to be Lucentio's wife. BIONDELLO I pray the gods she may with all my heart! TRANIO Dally not with the gods, but get thee gone. [Exit BIONDELLO] Signior Baptista, shall I lead the way? Welcome! one mess is like to be your cheer: Come, sir; we will better it in Pisa. BAPTISTA I follow you. [Exeunt TRANIO, Pedant, and BAPTISTA] [Re-enter BIONDELLO] BIONDELLO Cambio! LUCENTIO What sayest thou, Biondello? BIONDELLO You saw my master wink and laugh upon you? LUCENTIO Biondello, what of that? BIONDELLO Faith, nothing; but has left me here behind, to expound the meaning or moral of his signs and tokens. LUCENTIO I pray thee, moralize them. BIONDELLO Then thus. Baptista is safe, talking with the deceiving father of a deceitful son. LUCENTIO And what of him? BIONDELLO His daughter is to be brought by you to the supper. LUCENTIO And then? BIONDELLO The old priest of Saint Luke's church is at your command at all hours. LUCENTIO And what of all this? BIONDELLO I cannot tell; expect they are busied about a counterfeit assurance: take you assurance of her, 'cum privilegio ad imprimendum solum:' to the church; take the priest, clerk, and some sufficient honest witnesses: If this be not that you look for, I have no more to say, But bid Bianca farewell for ever and a day. LUCENTIO Hearest thou, Biondello? BIONDELLO I cannot tarry: I knew a wench married in an afternoon as she went to the garden for parsley to stuff a rabbit; and so may you, sir: and so, adieu, sir. My master hath appointed me to go to Saint Luke's, to bid the priest be ready to come against you come with your appendix. [Exit] LUCENTIO I may, and will, if she be so contented: She will be pleased; then wherefore should I doubt? Hap what hap may, I'll roundly go about her: It shall go hard if Cambio go without her. [Exit] THE TAMING OF THE SHREW ACT IV SCENE V A public road. [Enter PETRUCHIO, KATHARINA, HORTENSIO, and Servants] PETRUCHIO Come on, i' God's name; once more toward our father's. Good Lord, how bright and goodly shines the moon! KATHARINA The moon! the sun: it is not moonlight now. PETRUCHIO I say it is the moon that shines so bright. KATHARINA I know it is the sun that shines so bright. PETRUCHIO Now, by my mother's son, and that's myself, It shall be moon, or star, or what I list, Or ere I journey to your father's house. Go on, and fetch our horses back again. Evermore cross'd and cross'd; nothing but cross'd! HORTENSIO Say as he says, or we shall never go. KATHARINA Forward, I pray, since we have come so far, And be it moon, or sun, or what you please: An if you please to call it a rush-candle, Henceforth I vow it shall be so for me. PETRUCHIO I say it is the moon. KATHARINA I know it is the moon. PETRUCHIO Nay, then you lie: it is the blessed sun. KATHARINA Then, God be bless'd, it is the blessed sun: But sun it is not, when you say it is not; And the moon changes even as your mind. What you will have it named, even that it is; And so it shall be so for Katharina. HORTENSIO Petruchio, go thy ways; the field is won. PETRUCHIO Well, forward, forward! thus the bowl should run, And not unluckily against the bias. But, soft! company is coming here. [Enter VINCENTIO] [To VINCENTIO] Good morrow, gentle mistress: where away? Tell me, sweet Kate, and tell me truly too, Hast thou beheld a fresher gentlewoman? Such war of white and red within her cheeks! What stars do spangle heaven with such beauty, As those two eyes become that heavenly face? Fair lovely maid, once more good day to thee. Sweet Kate, embrace her for her beauty's sake. HORTENSIO A' will make the man mad, to make a woman of him. KATHARINA Young budding virgin, fair and fresh and sweet, Whither away, or where is thy abode? Happy the parents of so fair a child; Happier the man, whom favourable stars Allot thee for his lovely bed-fellow! PETRUCHIO Why, how now, Kate! I hope thou art not mad: This is a man, old, wrinkled, faded, wither'd, And not a maiden, as thou say'st he is. KATHARINA Pardon, old father, my mistaking eyes, That have been so bedazzled with the sun That everything I look on seemeth green: Now I perceive thou art a reverend father; Pardon, I pray thee, for my mad mistaking. PETRUCHIO Do, good old grandsire; and withal make known Which way thou travellest: if along with us, We shall be joyful of thy company. VINCENTIO Fair sir, and you my merry mistress, That with your strange encounter much amazed me, My name is call'd Vincentio; my dwelling Pisa; And bound I am to Padua; there to visit A son of mine, which long I have not seen. PETRUCHIO What is his name? VINCENTIO Lucentio, gentle sir. PETRUCHIO Happily we met; the happier for thy son. And now by law, as well as reverend age, I may entitle thee my loving father: The sister to my wife, this gentlewoman, Thy son by this hath married. Wonder not, Nor be grieved: she is of good esteem, Her dowery wealthy, and of worthy birth; Beside, so qualified as may beseem The spouse of any noble gentleman. Let me embrace with old Vincentio, And wander we to see thy honest son, Who will of thy arrival be full joyous. VINCENTIO But is it true? or else is it your pleasure, Like pleasant travellers, to break a jest Upon the company you overtake? HORTENSIO I do assure thee, father, so it is. PETRUCHIO Come, go along, and see the truth hereof; For our first merriment hath made thee jealous. [Exeunt all but HORTENSIO] HORTENSIO Well, Petruchio, this has put me in heart. Have to my widow! and if she be froward, Then hast thou taught Hortensio to be untoward. [Exit] THE TAMING OF THE SHREW ACT V SCENE I Padua. Before LUCENTIO'S house. [GREMIO discovered. Enter behind BIONDELLO, LUCENTIO, and BIANCA] BIONDELLO Softly and swiftly, sir; for the priest is ready. LUCENTIO I fly, Biondello: but they may chance to need thee at home; therefore leave us. BIONDELLO Nay, faith, I'll see the church o' your back; and then come back to my master's as soon as I can. [Exeunt LUCENTIO, BIANCA, and BIONDELLO] GREMIO I marvel Cambio comes not all this while. [Enter PETRUCHIO, KATHARINA, VINCENTIO, GRUMIO, with Attendants] PETRUCHIO Sir, here's the door, this is Lucentio's house: My father's bears more toward the market-place; Thither must I, and here I leave you, sir. VINCENTIO You shall not choose but drink before you go: I think I shall command your welcome here, And, by all likelihood, some cheer is toward. [Knocks] GREMIO They're busy within; you were best knock louder. [Pedant looks out of the window] Pedant What's he that knocks as he would beat down the gate? VINCENTIO Is Signior Lucentio within, sir? Pedant He's within, sir, but not to be spoken withal. VINCENTIO What if a man bring him a hundred pound or two, to make merry withal? Pedant Keep your hundred pounds to yourself: he shall need none, so long as I live. PETRUCHIO Nay, I told you your son was well beloved in Padua. Do you hear, sir? To leave frivolous circumstances, I pray you, tell Signior Lucentio that his father is come from Pisa, and is here at the door to speak with him. Pedant Thou liest: his father is come from Padua and here looking out at the window. VINCENTIO Art thou his father? Pedant Ay, sir; so his mother says, if I may believe her. PETRUCHIO [To VINCENTIO] Why, how now, gentleman! why, this is flat knavery, to take upon you another man's name. Pedant Lay hands on the villain: I believe a' means to cozen somebody in this city under my countenance. [Re-enter BIONDELLO] BIONDELLO I have seen them in the church together: God send 'em good shipping! But who is here? mine old master Vincentio! now we are undone and brought to nothing. VINCENTIO [Seeing BIONDELLO] Come hither, crack-hemp. BIONDELLO Hope I may choose, sir. VINCENTIO Come hither, you rogue. What, have you forgot me? BIONDELLO Forgot you! no, sir: I could not forget you, for I never saw you before in all my life. VINCENTIO What, you notorious villain, didst thou never see thy master's father, Vincentio? BIONDELLO What, my old worshipful old master? yes, marry, sir: see where he looks out of the window. VINCENTIO Is't so, indeed. [Beats BIONDELLO] BIONDELLO Help, help, help! here's a madman will murder me. [Exit] Pedant Help, son! help, Signior Baptista! [Exit from above] PETRUCHIO Prithee, Kate, let's stand aside and see the end of this controversy. [They retire] [Re-enter Pedant below; TRANIO, BAPTISTA, and Servants] TRANIO Sir, what are you that offer to beat my servant? VINCENTIO What am I, sir! nay, what are you, sir? O immortal gods! O fine villain! A silken doublet! a velvet hose! a scarlet cloak! and a copatain hat! O, I am undone! I am undone! while I play the good husband at home, my son and my servant spend all at the university. TRANIO How now! what's the matter? BAPTISTA What, is the man lunatic? TRANIO Sir, you seem a sober ancient gentleman by your habit, but your words show you a madman. Why, sir, what 'cerns it you if I wear pearl and gold? I thank my good father, I am able to maintain it. VINCENTIO Thy father! O villain! he is a sailmaker in Bergamo. BAPTISTA You mistake, sir, you mistake, sir. Pray, what do you think is his name? VINCENTIO His name! as if I knew not his name: I have brought him up ever since he was three years old, and his name is Tranio. Pedant Away, away, mad ass! his name is Lucentio and he is mine only son, and heir to the lands of me, Signior Vincentio. VINCENTIO Lucentio! O, he hath murdered his master! Lay hold on him, I charge you, in the duke's name. O, my son, my son! Tell me, thou villain, where is my son Lucentio? TRANIO Call forth an officer. [Enter one with an Officer] Carry this mad knave to the gaol. Father Baptista, I charge you see that he be forthcoming. VINCENTIO Carry me to the gaol! GREMIO Stay, officer: he shall not go to prison. BAPTISTA Talk not, Signior Gremio: I say he shall go to prison. GREMIO Take heed, Signior Baptista, lest you be cony-catched in this business: I dare swear this is the right Vincentio. Pedant Swear, if thou darest. GREMIO Nay, I dare not swear it. TRANIO Then thou wert best say that I am not Lucentio. GREMIO Yes, I know thee to be Signior Lucentio. BAPTISTA Away with the dotard! to the gaol with him! VINCENTIO Thus strangers may be hailed and abused: O monstrous villain! [Re-enter BIONDELLO, with LUCENTIO and BIANCA] BIONDELLO O! we are spoiled and--yonder he is: deny him, forswear him, or else we are all undone. LUCENTIO [Kneeling] Pardon, sweet father. VINCENTIO Lives my sweet son? [Exeunt BIONDELLO, TRANIO, and Pedant, as fast as may be] BIANCA Pardon, dear father. BAPTISTA How hast thou offended? Where is Lucentio? LUCENTIO Here's Lucentio, Right son to the right Vincentio; That have by marriage made thy daughter mine, While counterfeit supposes bleared thine eyne. GREMIO Here's packing, with a witness to deceive us all! VINCENTIO Where is that damned villain Tranio, That faced and braved me in this matter so? BAPTISTA Why, tell me, is not this my Cambio? BIANCA Cambio is changed into Lucentio. LUCENTIO Love wrought these miracles. Bianca's love Made me exchange my state with Tranio, While he did bear my countenance in the town; And happily I have arrived at the last Unto the wished haven of my bliss. What Tranio did, myself enforced him to; Then pardon him, sweet father, for my sake. VINCENTIO I'll slit the villain's nose, that would have sent me to the gaol. BAPTISTA But do you hear, sir? have you married my daughter without asking my good will? VINCENTIO Fear not, Baptista; we will content you, go to: but I will in, to be revenged for this villany. [Exit] BAPTISTA And I, to sound the depth of this knavery. [Exit] LUCENTIO Look not pale, Bianca; thy father will not frown. [Exeunt LUCENTIO and BIANCA] GREMIO My cake is dough; but I'll in among the rest, Out of hope of all, but my share of the feast. [Exit] KATHARINA Husband, let's follow, to see the end of this ado. PETRUCHIO First kiss me, Kate, and we will. KATHARINA What, in the midst of the street? PETRUCHIO What, art thou ashamed of me? KATHARINA No, sir, God forbid; but ashamed to kiss. PETRUCHIO Why, then let's home again. Come, sirrah, let's away. KATHARINA Nay, I will give thee a kiss: now pray thee, love, stay. PETRUCHIO Is not this well? Come, my sweet Kate: Better once than never, for never too late. [Exeunt] THE TAMING OF THE SHREW ACT V SCENE II Padua. LUCENTIO'S house. [Enter BAPTISTA, VINCENTIO, GREMIO, the Pedant, LUCENTIO, BIANCA, PETRUCHIO, KATHARINA, HORTENSIO, and Widow, TRANIO, BIONDELLO, and GRUMIO the Serving-men with Tranio bringing in a banquet] LUCENTIO At last, though long, our jarring notes agree: And time it is, when raging war is done, To smile at scapes and perils overblown. My fair Bianca, bid my father welcome, While I with self-same kindness welcome thine. Brother Petruchio, sister Katharina, And thou, Hortensio, with thy loving widow, Feast with the best, and welcome to my house: My banquet is to close our stomachs up, After our great good cheer. Pray you, sit down; For now we sit to chat as well as eat. PETRUCHIO Nothing but sit and sit, and eat and eat! BAPTISTA Padua affords this kindness, son Petruchio. PETRUCHIO Padua affords nothing but what is kind. HORTENSIO For both our sakes, I would that word were true. PETRUCHIO Now, for my life, Hortensio fears his widow. Widow Then never trust me, if I be afeard. PETRUCHIO You are very sensible, and yet you miss my sense: I mean, Hortensio is afeard of you. Widow He that is giddy thinks the world turns round. PETRUCHIO Roundly replied. KATHARINA Mistress, how mean you that? Widow Thus I conceive by him. PETRUCHIO Conceives by me! How likes Hortensio that? HORTENSIO My widow says, thus she conceives her tale. PETRUCHIO Very well mended. Kiss him for that, good widow. KATHARINA 'He that is giddy thinks the world turns round:' I pray you, tell me what you meant by that. Widow Your husband, being troubled with a shrew, Measures my husband's sorrow by his woe: And now you know my meaning, KATHARINA A very mean meaning. Widow Right, I mean you. KATHARINA And I am mean indeed, respecting you. PETRUCHIO To her, Kate! HORTENSIO To her, widow! PETRUCHIO A hundred marks, my Kate does put her down. HORTENSIO That's my office. PETRUCHIO Spoke like an officer; ha' to thee, lad! [Drinks to HORTENSIO] BAPTISTA How likes Gremio these quick-witted folks? GREMIO Believe me, sir, they butt together well. BIANCA Head, and butt! an hasty-witted body Would say your head and butt were head and horn. VINCENTIO Ay, mistress bride, hath that awaken'd you? BIANCA Ay, but not frighted me; therefore I'll sleep again. PETRUCHIO Nay, that you shall not: since you have begun, Have at you for a bitter jest or two! BIANCA Am I your bird? I mean to shift my bush; And then pursue me as you draw your bow. You are welcome all. [Exeunt BIANCA, KATHARINA, and Widow] PETRUCHIO She hath prevented me. Here, Signior Tranio. This bird you aim'd at, though you hit her not; Therefore a health to all that shot and miss'd. TRANIO O, sir, Lucentio slipp'd me like his greyhound, Which runs himself and catches for his master. PETRUCHIO A good swift simile, but something currish. TRANIO 'Tis well, sir, that you hunted for yourself: 'Tis thought your deer does hold you at a bay. BAPTISTA O ho, Petruchio! Tranio hits you now. LUCENTIO I thank thee for that gird, good Tranio. HORTENSIO Confess, confess, hath he not hit you here? PETRUCHIO A' has a little gall'd me, I confess; And, as the jest did glance away from me, 'Tis ten to one it maim'd you two outright. BAPTISTA Now, in good sadness, son Petruchio, I think thou hast the veriest shrew of all. PETRUCHIO Well, I say no: and therefore for assurance Let's each one send unto his wife; And he whose wife is most obedient To come at first when he doth send for her, Shall win the wager which we will propose. HORTENSIO Content. What is the wager? LUCENTIO Twenty crowns. PETRUCHIO Twenty crowns! I'll venture so much of my hawk or hound, But twenty times so much upon my wife. LUCENTIO A hundred then. HORTENSIO Content. PETRUCHIO A match! 'tis done. HORTENSIO Who shall begin? LUCENTIO That will I. Go, Biondello, bid your mistress come to me. BIONDELLO I go. [Exit] BAPTISTA Son, I'll be your half, Bianca comes. LUCENTIO I'll have no halves; I'll bear it all myself. [Re-enter BIONDELLO] How now! what news? BIONDELLO Sir, my mistress sends you word That she is busy and she cannot come. PETRUCHIO How! she is busy and she cannot come! Is that an answer? GREMIO Ay, and a kind one too: Pray God, sir, your wife send you not a worse. PETRUCHIO I hope better. HORTENSIO Sirrah Biondello, go and entreat my wife To come to me forthwith. [Exit BIONDELLO] PETRUCHIO O, ho! entreat her! Nay, then she must needs come. HORTENSIO I am afraid, sir, Do what you can, yours will not be entreated. [Re-enter BIONDELLO] Now, where's my wife? BIONDELLO She says you have some goodly jest in hand: She will not come: she bids you come to her. PETRUCHIO Worse and worse; she will not come! O vile, Intolerable, not to be endured! Sirrah Grumio, go to your mistress; Say, I command her to come to me. [Exit GRUMIO] HORTENSIO I know her answer. PETRUCHIO What? HORTENSIO She will not. PETRUCHIO The fouler fortune mine, and there an end. BAPTISTA Now, by my holidame, here comes Katharina! [Re-enter KATARINA] KATHARINA What is your will, sir, that you send for me? PETRUCHIO Where is your sister, and Hortensio's wife? KATHARINA They sit conferring by the parlor fire. PETRUCHIO Go fetch them hither: if they deny to come. Swinge me them soundly forth unto their husbands: Away, I say, and bring them hither straight. [Exit KATHARINA] LUCENTIO Here is a wonder, if you talk of a wonder. HORTENSIO And so it is: I wonder what it bodes. PETRUCHIO Marry, peace it bodes, and love and quiet life, And awful rule and right supremacy; And, to be short, what not, that's sweet and happy? BAPTISTA Now, fair befal thee, good Petruchio! The wager thou hast won; and I will add Unto their losses twenty thousand crowns; Another dowry to another daughter, For she is changed, as she had never been. PETRUCHIO Nay, I will win my wager better yet And show more sign of her obedience, Her new-built virtue and obedience. See where she comes and brings your froward wives As prisoners to her womanly persuasion. [Re-enter KATHARINA, with BIANCA and Widow] Katharina, that cap of yours becomes you not: Off with that bauble, throw it under-foot. Widow Lord, let me never have a cause to sigh, Till I be brought to such a silly pass! BIANCA Fie! what a foolish duty call you this? LUCENTIO I would your duty were as foolish too: The wisdom of your duty, fair Bianca, Hath cost me an hundred crowns since supper-time. BIANCA The more fool you, for laying on my duty. PETRUCHIO Katharina, I charge thee, tell these headstrong women What duty they do owe their lords and husbands. Widow Come, come, you're mocking: we will have no telling. PETRUCHIO Come on, I say; and first begin with her. Widow She shall not. PETRUCHIO I say she shall: and first begin with her. KATHARINA Fie, fie! unknit that threatening unkind brow, And dart not scornful glances from those eyes, To wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor: It blots thy beauty as frosts do bite the meads, Confounds thy fame as whirlwinds shake fair buds, And in no sense is meet or amiable. A woman moved is like a fountain troubled, Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty; And while it is so, none so dry or thirsty Will deign to sip or touch one drop of it. Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper, Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee, And for thy maintenance commits his body To painful labour both by sea and land, To watch the night in storms, the day in cold, Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe; And craves no other tribute at thy hands But love, fair looks and true obedience; Too little payment for so great a debt. Such duty as the subject owes the prince Even such a woman oweth to her husband; And when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour, And not obedient to his honest will, What is she but a foul contending rebel And graceless traitor to her loving lord? I am ashamed that women are so simple To offer war where they should kneel for peace; Or seek for rule, supremacy and sway, When they are bound to serve, love and obey. Why are our bodies soft and weak and smooth, Unapt to toil and trouble in the world, But that our soft conditions and our hearts Should well agree with our external parts? Come, come, you froward and unable worms! My mind hath been as big as one of yours, My heart as great, my reason haply more, To bandy word for word and frown for frown; But now I see our lances are but straws, Our strength as weak, our weakness past compare, That seeming to be most which we indeed least are. Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot, And place your hands below your husband's foot: In token of which duty, if he please, My hand is ready; may it do him ease. PETRUCHIO Why, there's a wench! Come on, and kiss me, Kate. LUCENTIO Well, go thy ways, old lad; for thou shalt ha't. VINCENTIO 'Tis a good hearing when children are toward. LUCENTIO But a harsh hearing when women are froward. PETRUCHIO Come, Kate, we'll to bed. We three are married, but you two are sped. [To LUCENTIO] 'Twas I won the wager, though you hit the white; And, being a winner, God give you good night! [Exeunt PETRUCHIO and KATHARINA] HORTENSIO Now, go thy ways; thou hast tamed a curst shrew. LUCENTIO 'Tis a wonder, by your leave, she will be tamed so. [Exeunt] THE TEMPEST DRAMATIS PERSONAE ALONSO King of Naples. SEBASTIAN his brother. PROSPERO the right Duke of Milan. ANTONIO his brother, the usurping Duke of Milan. FERDINAND son to the King of Naples. GONZALO an honest old Counsellor. ADRIAN | | Lords. FRANCISCO | CALIBAN a savage and deformed Slave. TRINCULO a Jester. STEPHANO a drunken Butler. Master of a Ship. (Master:) Boatswain. (Boatswain:) Mariners. (Mariners:) MIRANDA daughter to Prospero. ARIEL an airy Spirit. IRIS | | CERES | | JUNO | presented by Spirits. | Nymphs | | Reapers | Other Spirits attending on Prospero. SCENE A ship at Sea: an island. THE TEMPEST ACT I SCENE I On a ship at sea: a tempestuous noise of thunder and lightning heard. [Enter a Master and a Boatswain] Master Boatswain! Boatswain Here, master: what cheer? Master Good, speak to the mariners: fall to't, yarely, or we run ourselves aground: bestir, bestir. [Exit] [Enter Mariners] Boatswain Heigh, my hearts! cheerly, cheerly, my hearts! yare, yare! Take in the topsail. Tend to the master's whistle. Blow, till thou burst thy wind, if room enough! [Enter ALONSO, SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, FERDINAND, GONZALO, and others] ALONSO Good boatswain, have care. Where's the master? Play the men. Boatswain I pray now, keep below. ANTONIO Where is the master, boatswain? Boatswain Do you not hear him? You mar our labour: keep your cabins: you do assist the storm. GONZALO Nay, good, be patient. Boatswain When the sea is. Hence! What cares these roarers for the name of king? To cabin: silence! trouble us not. GONZALO Good, yet remember whom thou hast aboard. Boatswain None that I more love than myself. You are a counsellor; if you can command these elements to silence, and work the peace of the present, we will not hand a rope more; use your authority: if you cannot, give thanks you have lived so long, and make yourself ready in your cabin for the mischance of the hour, if it so hap. Cheerly, good hearts! Out of our way, I say. [Exit] GONZALO I have great comfort from this fellow: methinks he hath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is perfect gallows. Stand fast, good Fate, to his hanging: make the rope of his destiny our cable, for our own doth little advantage. If he be not born to be hanged, our case is miserable. [Exeunt] [Re-enter Boatswain] Boatswain Down with the topmast! yare! lower, lower! Bring her to try with main-course. [A cry within] A plague upon this howling! they are louder than the weather or our office. [Re-enter SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, and GONZALO] Yet again! what do you here? Shall we give o'er and drown? Have you a mind to sink? SEBASTIAN A pox o' your throat, you bawling, blasphemous, incharitable dog! Boatswain Work you then. ANTONIO Hang, cur! hang, you whoreson, insolent noisemaker! We are less afraid to be drowned than thou art. GONZALO I'll warrant him for drowning; though the ship were no stronger than a nutshell and as leaky as an unstanched wench. Boatswain Lay her a-hold, a-hold! set her two courses off to sea again; lay her off. [Enter Mariners wet] Mariners All lost! to prayers, to prayers! all lost! Boatswain What, must our mouths be cold? GONZALO The king and prince at prayers! let's assist them, For our case is as theirs. SEBASTIAN I'm out of patience. ANTONIO We are merely cheated of our lives by drunkards: This wide-chapp'd rascal--would thou mightst lie drowning The washing of ten tides! GONZALO He'll be hang'd yet, Though every drop of water swear against it And gape at widest to glut him. [A confused noise within: 'Mercy on us!'-- 'We split, we split!'--'Farewell, my wife and children!'-- 'Farewell, brother!'--'We split, we split, we split!'] ANTONIO Let's all sink with the king. SEBASTIAN Let's take leave of him. [Exeunt ANTONIO and SEBASTIAN] GONZALO Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground, long heath, brown furze, any thing. The wills above be done! but I would fain die a dry death. [Exeunt] THE TEMPEST ACT I SCENE II The island. Before PROSPERO'S cell. [Enter PROSPERO and MIRANDA] MIRANDA If by your art, my dearest father, you have Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them. The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch, But that the sea, mounting to the welkin's cheek, Dashes the fire out. O, I have suffered With those that I saw suffer: a brave vessel, Who had, no doubt, some noble creature in her, Dash'd all to pieces. O, the cry did knock Against my very heart. Poor souls, they perish'd. Had I been any god of power, I would Have sunk the sea within the earth or ere It should the good ship so have swallow'd and The fraughting souls within her. PROSPERO Be collected: No more amazement: tell your piteous heart There's no harm done. MIRANDA O, woe the day! PROSPERO No harm. I have done nothing but in care of thee, Of thee, my dear one, thee, my daughter, who Art ignorant of what thou art, nought knowing Of whence I am, nor that I am more better Than Prospero, master of a full poor cell, And thy no greater father. MIRANDA More to know Did never meddle with my thoughts. PROSPERO 'Tis time I should inform thee farther. Lend thy hand, And pluck my magic garment from me. So: [Lays down his mantle] Lie there, my art. Wipe thou thine eyes; have comfort. The direful spectacle of the wreck, which touch'd The very virtue of compassion in thee, I have with such provision in mine art So safely ordered that there is no soul-- No, not so much perdition as an hair Betid to any creature in the vessel Which thou heard'st cry, which thou saw'st sink. Sit down; For thou must now know farther. MIRANDA You have often Begun to tell me what I am, but stopp'd And left me to a bootless inquisition, Concluding 'Stay: not yet.' PROSPERO The hour's now come; The very minute bids thee ope thine ear; Obey and be attentive. Canst thou remember A time before we came unto this cell? I do not think thou canst, for then thou wast not Out three years old. MIRANDA Certainly, sir, I can. PROSPERO By what? by any other house or person? Of any thing the image tell me that Hath kept with thy remembrance. MIRANDA 'Tis far off And rather like a dream than an assurance That my remembrance warrants. Had I not Four or five women once that tended me? PROSPERO Thou hadst, and more, Miranda. But how is it That this lives in thy mind? What seest thou else In the dark backward and abysm of time? If thou remember'st aught ere thou camest here, How thou camest here thou mayst. MIRANDA But that I do not. PROSPERO Twelve year since, Miranda, twelve year since, Thy father was the Duke of Milan and A prince of power. MIRANDA Sir, are not you my father? PROSPERO Thy mother was a piece of virtue, and She said thou wast my daughter; and thy father Was Duke of Milan; and thou his only heir And princess no worse issued. MIRANDA O the heavens! What foul play had we, that we came from thence? Or blessed was't we did? PROSPERO Both, both, my girl: By foul play, as thou say'st, were we heaved thence, But blessedly holp hither. MIRANDA O, my heart bleeds To think o' the teen that I have turn'd you to, Which is from my remembrance! Please you, farther. PROSPERO My brother and thy uncle, call'd Antonio-- I pray thee, mark me--that a brother should Be so perfidious!--he whom next thyself Of all the world I loved and to him put The manage of my state; as at that time Through all the signories it was the first And Prospero the prime duke, being so reputed In dignity, and for the liberal arts Without a parallel; those being all my study, The government I cast upon my brother And to my state grew stranger, being transported And rapt in secret studies. Thy false uncle-- Dost thou attend me? MIRANDA Sir, most heedfully. PROSPERO Being once perfected how to grant suits, How to deny them, who to advance and who To trash for over-topping, new created The creatures that were mine, I say, or changed 'em, Or else new form'd 'em; having both the key Of officer and office, set all hearts i' the state To what tune pleased his ear; that now he was The ivy which had hid my princely trunk, And suck'd my verdure out on't. Thou attend'st not. MIRANDA O, good sir, I do. PROSPERO I pray thee, mark me. I, thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated To closeness and the bettering of my mind With that which, but by being so retired, O'er-prized all popular rate, in my false brother Awaked an evil nature; and my trust, Like a good parent, did beget of him A falsehood in its contrary as great As my trust was; which had indeed no limit, A confidence sans bound. He being thus lorded, Not only with what my revenue yielded, But what my power might else exact, like one Who having into truth, by telling of it, Made such a sinner of his memory, To credit his own lie, he did believe He was indeed the duke; out o' the substitution And executing the outward face of royalty, With all prerogative: hence his ambition growing-- Dost thou hear? MIRANDA Your tale, sir, would cure deafness. PROSPERO To have no screen between this part he play'd And him he play'd it for, he needs will be Absolute Milan. Me, poor man, my library Was dukedom large enough: of temporal royalties He thinks me now incapable; confederates-- So dry he was for sway--wi' the King of Naples To give him annual tribute, do him homage, Subject his coronet to his crown and bend The dukedom yet unbow'd--alas, poor Milan!-- To most ignoble stooping. MIRANDA O the heavens! PROSPERO Mark his condition and the event; then tell me If this might be a brother. MIRANDA I should sin To think but nobly of my grandmother: Good wombs have borne bad sons. PROSPERO Now the condition. The King of Naples, being an enemy To me inveterate, hearkens my brother's suit; Which was, that he, in lieu o' the premises Of homage and I know not how much tribute, Should presently extirpate me and mine Out of the dukedom and confer fair Milan With all the honours on my brother: whereon, A treacherous army levied, one midnight Fated to the purpose did Antonio open The gates of Milan, and, i' the dead of darkness, The ministers for the purpose hurried thence Me and thy crying self. MIRANDA Alack, for pity! I, not remembering how I cried out then, Will cry it o'er again: it is a hint That wrings mine eyes to't. PROSPERO Hear a little further And then I'll bring thee to the present business Which now's upon's; without the which this story Were most impertinent. MIRANDA Wherefore did they not That hour destroy us? PROSPERO Well demanded, wench: My tale provokes that question. Dear, they durst not, So dear the love my people bore me, nor set A mark so bloody on the business, but With colours fairer painted their foul ends. In few, they hurried us aboard a bark, Bore us some leagues to sea; where they prepared A rotten carcass of a boat, not rigg'd, Nor tackle, sail, nor mast; the very rats Instinctively had quit it: there they hoist us, To cry to the sea that roar'd to us, to sigh To the winds whose pity, sighing back again, Did us but loving wrong. MIRANDA Alack, what trouble Was I then to you! PROSPERO O, a cherubim Thou wast that did preserve me. Thou didst smile. Infused with a fortitude from heaven, When I have deck'd the sea with drops full salt, Under my burthen groan'd; which raised in me An undergoing stomach, to bear up Against what should ensue. MIRANDA How came we ashore? PROSPERO By Providence divine. Some food we had and some fresh water that A noble Neapolitan, Gonzalo, Out of his charity, being then appointed Master of this design, did give us, with Rich garments, linens, stuffs and necessaries, Which since have steaded much; so, of his gentleness, Knowing I loved my books, he furnish'd me From mine own library with volumes that I prize above my dukedom. MIRANDA Would I might But ever see that man! PROSPERO Now I arise: [Resumes his mantle] Sit still, and hear the last of our sea-sorrow. Here in this island we arrived; and here Have I, thy schoolmaster, made thee more profit Than other princesses can that have more time For vainer hours and tutors not so careful. MIRANDA Heavens thank you for't! And now, I pray you, sir, For still 'tis beating in my mind, your reason For raising this sea-storm? PROSPERO Know thus far forth. By accident most strange, bountiful Fortune, Now my dear lady, hath mine enemies Brought to this shore; and by my prescience I find my zenith doth depend upon A most auspicious star, whose influence If now I court not but omit, my fortunes Will ever after droop. Here cease more questions: Thou art inclined to sleep; 'tis a good dulness, And give it way: I know thou canst not choose. [MIRANDA sleeps] Come away, servant, come. I am ready now. Approach, my Ariel, come. [Enter ARIEL] ARIEL All hail, great master! grave sir, hail! I come To answer thy best pleasure; be't to fly, To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride On the curl'd clouds, to thy strong bidding task Ariel and all his quality. PROSPERO Hast thou, spirit, Perform'd to point the tempest that I bade thee? ARIEL To every article. I boarded the king's ship; now on the beak, Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin, I flamed amazement: sometime I'ld divide, And burn in many places; on the topmast, The yards and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly, Then meet and join. Jove's lightnings, the precursors O' the dreadful thunder-claps, more momentary And sight-outrunning were not; the fire and cracks Of sulphurous roaring the most mighty Neptune Seem to besiege and make his bold waves tremble, Yea, his dread trident shake. PROSPERO My brave spirit! Who was so firm, so constant, that this coil Would not infect his reason? ARIEL Not a soul But felt a fever of the mad and play'd Some tricks of desperation. All but mariners Plunged in the foaming brine and quit the vessel, Then all afire with me: the king's son, Ferdinand, With hair up-staring,--then like reeds, not hair,-- Was the first man that leap'd; cried, 'Hell is empty And all the devils are here.' PROSPERO Why that's my spirit! But was not this nigh shore? ARIEL Close by, my master. PROSPERO But are they, Ariel, safe? ARIEL Not a hair perish'd; On their sustaining garments not a blemish, But fresher than before: and, as thou badest me, In troops I have dispersed them 'bout the isle. The king's son have I landed by himself; Whom I left cooling of the air with sighs In an odd angle of the isle and sitting, His arms in this sad knot. PROSPERO Of the king's ship The mariners say how thou hast disposed And all the rest o' the fleet. ARIEL Safely in harbour Is the king's ship; in the deep nook, where once Thou call'dst me up at midnight to fetch dew From the still-vex'd Bermoothes, there she's hid: The mariners all under hatches stow'd; Who, with a charm join'd to their suffer'd labour, I have left asleep; and for the rest o' the fleet Which I dispersed, they all have met again And are upon the Mediterranean flote, Bound sadly home for Naples, Supposing that they saw the king's ship wreck'd And his great person perish. PROSPERO Ariel, thy charge Exactly is perform'd: but there's more work. What is the time o' the day? ARIEL Past the mid season. PROSPERO At least two glasses. The time 'twixt six and now Must by us both be spent most preciously. ARIEL Is there more toil? Since thou dost give me pains, Let me remember thee what thou hast promised, Which is not yet perform'd me. PROSPERO How now? moody? What is't thou canst demand? ARIEL My liberty. PROSPERO Before the time be out? no more! ARIEL I prithee, Remember I have done thee worthy service; Told thee no lies, made thee no mistakings, served Without or grudge or grumblings: thou didst promise To bate me a full year. PROSPERO Dost thou forget From what a torment I did free thee? ARIEL No. PROSPERO Thou dost, and think'st it much to tread the ooze Of the salt deep, To run upon the sharp wind of the north, To do me business in the veins o' the earth When it is baked with frost. ARIEL I do not, sir. PROSPERO Thou liest, malignant thing! Hast thou forgot The foul witch Sycorax, who with age and envy Was grown into a hoop? hast thou forgot her? ARIEL No, sir. PROSPERO Thou hast. Where was she born? speak; tell me. ARIEL Sir, in Argier. PROSPERO O, was she so? I must Once in a month recount what thou hast been, Which thou forget'st. This damn'd witch Sycorax, For mischiefs manifold and sorceries terrible To enter human hearing, from Argier, Thou know'st, was banish'd: for one thing she did They would not take her life. Is not this true? ARIEL Ay, sir. PROSPERO This blue-eyed hag was hither brought with child And here was left by the sailors. Thou, my slave, As thou report'st thyself, wast then her servant; And, for thou wast a spirit too delicate To act her earthy and abhorr'd commands, Refusing her grand hests, she did confine thee, By help of her more potent ministers And in her most unmitigable rage, Into a cloven pine; within which rift Imprison'd thou didst painfully remain A dozen years; within which space she died And left thee there; where thou didst vent thy groans As fast as mill-wheels strike. Then was this island-- Save for the son that she did litter here, A freckled whelp hag-born--not honour'd with A human shape. ARIEL Yes, Caliban her son. PROSPERO Dull thing, I say so; he, that Caliban Whom now I keep in service. Thou best know'st What torment I did find thee in; thy groans Did make wolves howl and penetrate the breasts Of ever angry bears: it was a torment To lay upon the damn'd, which Sycorax Could not again undo: it was mine art, When I arrived and heard thee, that made gape The pine and let thee out. ARIEL I thank thee, master. PROSPERO If thou more murmur'st, I will rend an oak And peg thee in his knotty entrails till Thou hast howl'd away twelve winters. ARIEL Pardon, master; I will be correspondent to command And do my spiriting gently. PROSPERO Do so, and after two days I will discharge thee. ARIEL That's my noble master! What shall I do? say what; what shall I do? PROSPERO Go make thyself like a nymph o' the sea: be subject To no sight but thine and mine, invisible To every eyeball else. Go take this shape And hither come in't: go, hence with diligence! [Exit ARIEL] Awake, dear heart, awake! thou hast slept well; Awake! MIRANDA The strangeness of your story put Heaviness in me. PROSPERO Shake it off. Come on; We'll visit Caliban my slave, who never Yields us kind answer. MIRANDA 'Tis a villain, sir, I do not love to look on. PROSPERO But, as 'tis, We cannot miss him: he does make our fire, Fetch in our wood and serves in offices That profit us. What, ho! slave! Caliban! Thou earth, thou! speak. CALIBAN [Within] There's wood enough within. PROSPERO Come forth, I say! there's other business for thee: Come, thou tortoise! when? [Re-enter ARIEL like a water-nymph] Fine apparition! My quaint Ariel, Hark in thine ear. ARIEL My lord it shall be done. [Exit] PROSPERO Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself Upon thy wicked dam, come forth! [Enter CALIBAN] CALIBAN As wicked dew as e'er my mother brush'd With raven's feather from unwholesome fen Drop on you both! a south-west blow on ye And blister you all o'er! PROSPERO For this, be sure, to-night thou shalt have cramps, Side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up; urchins Shall, for that vast of night that they may work, All exercise on thee; thou shalt be pinch'd As thick as honeycomb, each pinch more stinging Than bees that made 'em. CALIBAN I must eat my dinner. This island's mine, by Sycorax my mother, Which thou takest from me. When thou camest first, Thou strokedst me and madest much of me, wouldst give me Water with berries in't, and teach me how To name the bigger light, and how the less, That burn by day and night: and then I loved thee And show'd thee all the qualities o' the isle, The fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place and fertile: Cursed be I that did so! All the charms Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you! For I am all the subjects that you have, Which first was mine own king: and here you sty me In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me The rest o' the island. PROSPERO Thou most lying slave, Whom stripes may move, not kindness! I have used thee, Filth as thou art, with human care, and lodged thee In mine own cell, till thou didst seek to violate The honour of my child. CALIBAN O ho, O ho! would't had been done! Thou didst prevent me; I had peopled else This isle with Calibans. PROSPERO Abhorred slave, Which any print of goodness wilt not take, Being capable of all ill! I pitied thee, Took pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour One thing or other: when thou didst not, savage, Know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like A thing most brutish, I endow'd thy purposes With words that made them known. But thy vile race, Though thou didst learn, had that in't which good natures Could not abide to be with; therefore wast thou Deservedly confined into this rock, Who hadst deserved more than a prison. CALIBAN You taught me language; and my profit on't Is, I know how to curse. The red plague rid you For learning me your language! PROSPERO Hag-seed, hence! Fetch us in fuel; and be quick, thou'rt best, To answer other business. Shrug'st thou, malice? If thou neglect'st or dost unwillingly What I command, I'll rack thee with old cramps, Fill all thy bones with aches, make thee roar That beasts shall tremble at thy din. CALIBAN No, pray thee. [Aside] I must obey: his art is of such power, It would control my dam's god, Setebos, and make a vassal of him. PROSPERO So, slave; hence! [Exit CALIBAN] [Re-enter ARIEL, invisible, playing and singing; FERDINAND following] ARIEL'S song. Come unto these yellow sands, And then take hands: Courtsied when you have and kiss'd The wild waves whist, Foot it featly here and there; And, sweet sprites, the burthen bear. Hark, hark! [Burthen [dispersedly, within] Bow-wow] The watch-dogs bark! [Burthen Bow-wow] Hark, hark! I hear The strain of strutting chanticleer Cry, Cock-a-diddle-dow. FERDINAND Where should this music be? i' the air or the earth? It sounds no more: and sure, it waits upon Some god o' the island. Sitting on a bank, Weeping again the king my father's wreck, This music crept by me upon the waters, Allaying both their fury and my passion With its sweet air: thence I have follow'd it, Or it hath drawn me rather. But 'tis gone. No, it begins again. [ARIEL sings] Full fathom five thy father lies; Of his bones are coral made; Those are pearls that were his eyes: Nothing of him that doth fade But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange. Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell [Burthen Ding-dong] Hark! now I hear them,--Ding-dong, bell. FERDINAND The ditty does remember my drown'd father. This is no mortal business, nor no sound That the earth owes. I hear it now above me. PROSPERO The fringed curtains of thine eye advance And say what thou seest yond. MIRANDA What is't? a spirit? Lord, how it looks about! Believe me, sir, It carries a brave form. But 'tis a spirit. PROSPERO No, wench; it eats and sleeps and hath such senses As we have, such. This gallant which thou seest Was in the wreck; and, but he's something stain'd With grief that's beauty's canker, thou mightst call him A goodly person: he hath lost his fellows And strays about to find 'em. MIRANDA I might call him A thing divine, for nothing natural I ever saw so noble. PROSPERO [Aside] It goes on, I see, As my soul prompts it. Spirit, fine spirit! I'll free thee Within two days for this. FERDINAND Most sure, the goddess On whom these airs attend! Vouchsafe my prayer May know if you remain upon this island; And that you will some good instruction give How I may bear me here: my prime request, Which I do last pronounce, is, O you wonder! If you be maid or no? MIRANDA No wonder, sir; But certainly a maid. FERDINAND My language! heavens! I am the best of them that speak this speech, Were I but where 'tis spoken. PROSPERO How? the best? What wert thou, if the King of Naples heard thee? FERDINAND A single thing, as I am now, that wonders To hear thee speak of Naples. He does hear me; And that he does I weep: myself am Naples, Who with mine eyes, never since at ebb, beheld The king my father wreck'd. MIRANDA Alack, for mercy! FERDINAND Yes, faith, and all his lords; the Duke of Milan And his brave son being twain. PROSPERO [Aside] The Duke of Milan And his more braver daughter could control thee, If now 'twere fit to do't. At the first sight They have changed eyes. Delicate Ariel, I'll set thee free for this. [To FERDINAND] A word, good sir; I fear you have done yourself some wrong: a word. MIRANDA Why speaks my father so ungently? This Is the third man that e'er I saw, the first That e'er I sigh'd for: pity move my father To be inclined my way! FERDINAND O, if a virgin, And your affection not gone forth, I'll make you The queen of Naples. PROSPERO Soft, sir! one word more. [Aside] They are both in either's powers; but this swift business I must uneasy make, lest too light winning Make the prize light. [To FERDINAND] One word more; I charge thee That thou attend me: thou dost here usurp The name thou owest not; and hast put thyself Upon this island as a spy, to win it From me, the lord on't. FERDINAND No, as I am a man. MIRANDA There's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple: If the ill spirit have so fair a house, Good things will strive to dwell with't. PROSPERO Follow me. Speak not you for him; he's a traitor. Come; I'll manacle thy neck and feet together: Sea-water shalt thou drink; thy food shall be The fresh-brook muscles, wither'd roots and husks Wherein the acorn cradled. Follow. FERDINAND No; I will resist such entertainment till Mine enemy has more power. [Draws, and is charmed from moving] MIRANDA O dear father, Make not too rash a trial of him, for He's gentle and not fearful. PROSPERO What? I say, My foot my tutor? Put thy sword up, traitor; Who makest a show but darest not strike, thy conscience Is so possess'd with guilt: come from thy ward, For I can here disarm thee with this stick And make thy weapon drop. MIRANDA Beseech you, father. PROSPERO Hence! hang not on my garments. MIRANDA Sir, have pity; I'll be his surety. PROSPERO Silence! one word more Shall make me chide thee, if not hate thee. What! An advocate for an imposter! hush! Thou think'st there is no more such shapes as he, Having seen but him and Caliban: foolish wench! To the most of men this is a Caliban And they to him are angels. MIRANDA My affections Are then most humble; I have no ambition To see a goodlier man. PROSPERO Come on; obey: Thy nerves are in their infancy again And have no vigour in them. FERDINAND So they are; My spirits, as in a dream, are all bound up. My father's loss, the weakness which I feel, The wreck of all my friends, nor this man's threats, To whom I am subdued, are but light to me, Might I but through my prison once a day Behold this maid: all corners else o' the earth Let liberty make use of; space enough Have I in such a prison. PROSPERO [Aside] It works. [To FERDINAND] Come on. Thou hast done well, fine Ariel! [To FERDINAND] Follow me. [To ARIEL] Hark what thou else shalt do me. MIRANDA Be of comfort; My father's of a better nature, sir, Than he appears by speech: this is unwonted Which now came from him. PROSPERO Thou shalt be free As mountain winds: but then exactly do All points of my command. ARIEL To the syllable. PROSPERO Come, follow. Speak not for him. [Exeunt] THE TEMPEST ACT II SCENE I Another part of the island. [Enter ALONSO, SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, GONZALO, ADRIAN, FRANCISCO, and others] GONZALO Beseech you, sir, be merry; you have cause, So have we all, of joy; for our escape Is much beyond our loss. Our hint of woe Is common; every day some sailor's wife, The masters of some merchant and the merchant Have just our theme of woe; but for the miracle, I mean our preservation, few in millions Can speak like us: then wisely, good sir, weigh Our sorrow with our comfort. ALONSO Prithee, peace. SEBASTIAN He receives comfort like cold porridge. ANTONIO The visitor will not give him o'er so. SEBASTIAN Look he's winding up the watch of his wit; by and by it will strike. GONZALO Sir,-- SEBASTIAN One: tell. GONZALO When every grief is entertain'd that's offer'd, Comes to the entertainer-- SEBASTIAN A dollar. GONZALO Dolour comes to him, indeed: you have spoken truer than you purposed. SEBASTIAN You have taken it wiselier than I meant you should. GONZALO Therefore, my lord,-- ANTONIO Fie, what a spendthrift is he of his tongue! ALONSO I prithee, spare. GONZALO Well, I have done: but yet,-- SEBASTIAN He will be talking. ANTONIO Which, of he or Adrian, for a good wager, first begins to crow? SEBASTIAN The old cock. ANTONIO The cockerel. SEBASTIAN Done. The wager? ANTONIO A laughter. SEBASTIAN A match! ADRIAN Though this island seem to be desert,-- SEBASTIAN Ha, ha, ha! So, you're paid. ADRIAN Uninhabitable and almost inaccessible,-- SEBASTIAN Yet,-- ADRIAN Yet,-- ANTONIO He could not miss't. ADRIAN It must needs be of subtle, tender and delicate temperance. ANTONIO Temperance was a delicate wench. SEBASTIAN Ay, and a subtle; as he most learnedly delivered. ADRIAN The air breathes upon us here most sweetly. SEBASTIAN As if it had lungs and rotten ones. ANTONIO Or as 'twere perfumed by a fen. GONZALO Here is everything advantageous to life. ANTONIO True; save means to live. SEBASTIAN Of that there's none, or little. GONZALO How lush and lusty the grass looks! how green! ANTONIO The ground indeed is tawny. SEBASTIAN With an eye of green in't. ANTONIO He misses not much. SEBASTIAN No; he doth but mistake the truth totally. GONZALO But the rarity of it is,--which is indeed almost beyond credit,-- SEBASTIAN As many vouched rarities are. GONZALO That our garments, being, as they were, drenched in the sea, hold notwithstanding their freshness and glosses, being rather new-dyed than stained with salt water. ANTONIO If but one of his pockets could speak, would it not say he lies? SEBASTIAN Ay, or very falsely pocket up his report GONZALO Methinks our garments are now as fresh as when we put them on first in Afric, at the marriage of the king's fair daughter Claribel to the King of Tunis. SEBASTIAN 'Twas a sweet marriage, and we prosper well in our return. ADRIAN Tunis was never graced before with such a paragon to their queen. GONZALO Not since widow Dido's time. ANTONIO Widow! a pox o' that! How came that widow in? widow Dido! SEBASTIAN What if he had said 'widower AEneas' too? Good Lord, how you take it! ADRIAN 'Widow Dido' said you? you make me study of that: she was of Carthage, not of Tunis. GONZALO This Tunis, sir, was Carthage. ADRIAN Carthage? GONZALO I assure you, Carthage. SEBASTIAN His word is more than the miraculous harp; he hath raised the wall and houses too. ANTONIO What impossible matter will he make easy next? SEBASTIAN I think he will carry this island home in his pocket and give it his son for an apple. ANTONIO And, sowing the kernels of it in the sea, bring forth more islands. GONZALO Ay. ANTONIO Why, in good time. GONZALO Sir, we were talking that our garments seem now as fresh as when we were at Tunis at the marriage of your daughter, who is now queen. ANTONIO And the rarest that e'er came there. SEBASTIAN Bate, I beseech you, widow Dido. ANTONIO O, widow Dido! ay, widow Dido. GONZALO Is not, sir, my doublet as fresh as the first day I wore it? I mean, in a sort. ANTONIO That sort was well fished for. GONZALO When I wore it at your daughter's marriage? ALONSO You cram these words into mine ears against The stomach of my sense. Would I had never Married my daughter there! for, coming thence, My son is lost and, in my rate, she too, Who is so far from Italy removed I ne'er again shall see her. O thou mine heir Of Naples and of Milan, what strange fish Hath made his meal on thee? FRANCISCO Sir, he may live: I saw him beat the surges under him, And ride upon their backs; he trod the water, Whose enmity he flung aside, and breasted The surge most swoln that met him; his bold head 'Bove the contentious waves he kept, and oar'd Himself with his good arms in lusty stroke To the shore, that o'er his wave-worn basis bow'd, As stooping to relieve him: I not doubt He came alive to land. ALONSO No, no, he's gone. SEBASTIAN Sir, you may thank yourself for this great loss, That would not bless our Europe with your daughter, But rather lose her to an African; Where she at least is banish'd from your eye, Who hath cause to wet the grief on't. ALONSO Prithee, peace. SEBASTIAN You were kneel'd to and importuned otherwise By all of us, and the fair soul herself Weigh'd between loathness and obedience, at Which end o' the beam should bow. We have lost your son, I fear, for ever: Milan and Naples have More widows in them of this business' making Than we bring men to comfort them: The fault's your own. ALONSO So is the dear'st o' the loss. GONZALO My lord Sebastian, The truth you speak doth lack some gentleness And time to speak it in: you rub the sore, When you should bring the plaster. SEBASTIAN Very well. ANTONIO And most chirurgeonly. GONZALO It is foul weather in us all, good sir, When you are cloudy. SEBASTIAN Foul weather? ANTONIO Very foul. GONZALO Had I plantation of this isle, my lord,-- ANTONIO He'ld sow't with nettle-seed. SEBASTIAN Or docks, or mallows. GONZALO And were the king on't, what would I do? SEBASTIAN 'Scape being drunk for want of wine. GONZALO I' the commonwealth I would by contraries Execute all things; for no kind of traffic Would I admit; no name of magistrate; Letters should not be known; riches, poverty, And use of service, none; contract, succession, Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none; No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil; No occupation; all men idle, all; And women too, but innocent and pure; No sovereignty;-- SEBASTIAN Yet he would be king on't. ANTONIO The latter end of his commonwealth forgets the beginning. GONZALO All things in common nature should produce Without sweat or endeavour: treason, felony, Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine, Would I not have; but nature should bring forth, Of its own kind, all foison, all abundance, To feed my innocent people. SEBASTIAN No marrying 'mong his subjects? ANTONIO None, man; all idle: whores and knaves. GONZALO I would with such perfection govern, sir, To excel the golden age. SEBASTIAN God save his majesty! ANTONIO Long live Gonzalo! GONZALO And,--do you mark me, sir? ALONSO Prithee, no more: thou dost talk nothing to me. GONZALO I do well believe your highness; and did it to minister occasion to these gentlemen, who are of such sensible and nimble lungs that they always use to laugh at nothing. ANTONIO 'Twas you we laughed at. GONZALO Who in this kind of merry fooling am nothing to you: so you may continue and laugh at nothing still. ANTONIO What a blow was there given! SEBASTIAN An it had not fallen flat-long. GONZALO You are gentlemen of brave metal; you would lift the moon out of her sphere, if she would continue in it five weeks without changing. [Enter ARIEL, invisible, playing solemn music] SEBASTIAN We would so, and then go a bat-fowling. ANTONIO Nay, good my lord, be not angry. GONZALO No, I warrant you; I will not adventure my discretion so weakly. Will you laugh me asleep, for I am very heavy? ANTONIO Go sleep, and hear us. [All sleep except ALONSO, SEBASTIAN, and ANTONIO] ALONSO What, all so soon asleep! I wish mine eyes Would, with themselves, shut up my thoughts: I find They are inclined to do so. SEBASTIAN Please you, sir, Do not omit the heavy offer of it: It seldom visits sorrow; when it doth, It is a comforter. ANTONIO We two, my lord, Will guard your person while you take your rest, And watch your safety. ALONSO Thank you. Wondrous heavy. [ALONSO sleeps. Exit ARIEL] SEBASTIAN What a strange drowsiness possesses them! ANTONIO It is the quality o' the climate. SEBASTIAN Why Doth it not then our eyelids sink? I find not Myself disposed to sleep. ANTONIO Nor I; my spirits are nimble. They fell together all, as by consent; They dropp'd, as by a thunder-stroke. What might, Worthy Sebastian? O, what might?--No more:-- And yet me thinks I see it in thy face, What thou shouldst be: the occasion speaks thee, and My strong imagination sees a crown Dropping upon thy head. SEBASTIAN What, art thou waking? ANTONIO Do you not hear me speak? SEBASTIAN I do; and surely It is a sleepy language and thou speak'st Out of thy sleep. What is it thou didst say? This is a strange repose, to be asleep With eyes wide open; standing, speaking, moving, And yet so fast asleep. ANTONIO Noble Sebastian, Thou let'st thy fortune sleep--die, rather; wink'st Whiles thou art waking. SEBASTIAN Thou dost snore distinctly; There's meaning in thy snores. ANTONIO I am more serious than my custom: you Must be so too, if heed me; which to do Trebles thee o'er. SEBASTIAN Well, I am standing water. ANTONIO I'll teach you how to flow. SEBASTIAN Do so: to ebb Hereditary sloth instructs me. ANTONIO O, If you but knew how you the purpose cherish Whiles thus you mock it! how, in stripping it, You more invest it! Ebbing men, indeed, Most often do so near the bottom run By their own fear or sloth. SEBASTIAN Prithee, say on: The setting of thine eye and cheek proclaim A matter from thee, and a birth indeed Which throes thee much to yield. ANTONIO Thus, sir: Although this lord of weak remembrance, this, Who shall be of as little memory When he is earth'd, hath here almost persuade,-- For he's a spirit of persuasion, only Professes to persuade,--the king his son's alive, 'Tis as impossible that he's undrown'd And he that sleeps here swims. SEBASTIAN I have no hope That he's undrown'd. ANTONIO O, out of that 'no hope' What great hope have you! no hope that way is Another way so high a hope that even Ambition cannot pierce a wink beyond, But doubt discovery there. Will you grant with me That Ferdinand is drown'd? SEBASTIAN He's gone. ANTONIO Then, tell me, Who's the next heir of Naples? SEBASTIAN Claribel. ANTONIO She that is queen of Tunis; she that dwells Ten leagues beyond man's life; she that from Naples Can have no note, unless the sun were post-- The man i' the moon's too slow--till new-born chins Be rough and razorable; she that--from whom? We all were sea-swallow'd, though some cast again, And by that destiny to perform an act Whereof what's past is prologue, what to come In yours and my discharge. SEBASTIAN What stuff is this! how say you? 'Tis true, my brother's daughter's queen of Tunis; So is she heir of Naples; 'twixt which regions There is some space. ANTONIO A space whose every cubit Seems to cry out, 'How shall that Claribel Measure us back to Naples? Keep in Tunis, And let Sebastian wake.' Say, this were death That now hath seized them; why, they were no worse Than now they are. There be that can rule Naples As well as he that sleeps; lords that can prate As amply and unnecessarily As this Gonzalo; I myself could make A chough of as deep chat. O, that you bore The mind that I do! what a sleep were this For your advancement! Do you understand me? SEBASTIAN Methinks I do. ANTONIO And how does your content Tender your own good fortune? SEBASTIAN I remember You did supplant your brother Prospero. ANTONIO True: And look how well my garments sit upon me; Much feater than before: my brother's servants Were then my fellows; now they are my men. SEBASTIAN But, for your conscience? ANTONIO Ay, sir; where lies that? if 'twere a kibe, 'Twould put me to my slipper: but I feel not This deity in my bosom: twenty consciences, That stand 'twixt me and Milan, candied be they And melt ere they molest! Here lies your brother, No better than the earth he lies upon, If he were that which now he's like, that's dead; Whom I, with this obedient steel, three inches of it, Can lay to bed for ever; whiles you, doing thus, To the perpetual wink for aye might put This ancient morsel, this Sir Prudence, who Should not upbraid our course. For all the rest, They'll take suggestion as a cat laps milk; They'll tell the clock to any business that We say befits the hour. SEBASTIAN Thy case, dear friend, Shall be my precedent; as thou got'st Milan, I'll come by Naples. Draw thy sword: one stroke Shall free thee from the tribute which thou payest; And I the king shall love thee. ANTONIO Draw together; And when I rear my hand, do you the like, To fall it on Gonzalo. SEBASTIAN O, but one word. [They talk apart] [Re-enter ARIEL, invisible] ARIEL My master through his art foresees the danger That you, his friend, are in; and sends me forth-- For else his project dies--to keep them living. [Sings in GONZALO's ear] While you here do snoring lie, Open-eyed conspiracy His time doth take. If of life you keep a care, Shake off slumber, and beware: Awake, awake! ANTONIO Then let us both be sudden. GONZALO Now, good angels Preserve the king. [They wake] ALONSO Why, how now? ho, awake! Why are you drawn? Wherefore this ghastly looking? GONZALO What's the matter? SEBASTIAN Whiles we stood here securing your repose, Even now, we heard a hollow burst of bellowing Like bulls, or rather lions: did't not wake you? It struck mine ear most terribly. ALONSO I heard nothing. ANTONIO O, 'twas a din to fright a monster's ear, To make an earthquake! sure, it was the roar Of a whole herd of lions. ALONSO Heard you this, Gonzalo? GONZALO Upon mine honour, sir, I heard a humming, And that a strange one too, which did awake me: I shaked you, sir, and cried: as mine eyes open'd, I saw their weapons drawn: there was a noise, That's verily. 'Tis best we stand upon our guard, Or that we quit this place; let's draw our weapons. ALONSO Lead off this ground; and let's make further search For my poor son. GONZALO Heavens keep him from these beasts! For he is, sure, i' the island. ALONSO Lead away. ARIEL Prospero my lord shall know what I have done: So, king, go safely on to seek thy son. [Exeunt] THE TEMPEST ACT II SCENE II Another part of the island. [Enter CALIBAN with a burden of wood. A noise of thunder heard] CALIBAN All the infections that the sun sucks up From bogs, fens, flats, on Prosper fall and make him By inch-meal a disease! His spirits hear me And yet I needs must curse. But they'll nor pinch, Fright me with urchin--shows, pitch me i' the mire, Nor lead me, like a firebrand, in the dark Out of my way, unless he bid 'em; but For every trifle are they set upon me; Sometime like apes that mow and chatter at me And after bite me, then like hedgehogs which Lie tumbling in my barefoot way and mount Their pricks at my footfall; sometime am I All wound with adders who with cloven tongues Do hiss me into madness. [Enter TRINCULO] Lo, now, lo! Here comes a spirit of his, and to torment me For bringing wood in slowly. I'll fall flat; Perchance he will not mind me. TRINCULO Here's neither bush nor shrub, to bear off any weather at all, and another storm brewing; I hear it sing i' the wind: yond same black cloud, yond huge one, looks like a foul bombard that would shed his liquor. If it should thunder as it did before, I know not where to hide my head: yond same cloud cannot choose but fall by pailfuls. What have we here? a man or a fish? dead or alive? A fish: he smells like a fish; a very ancient and fish- like smell; a kind of not of the newest Poor- John. A strange fish! Were I in England now, as once I was, and had but this fish painted, not a holiday fool there but would give a piece of silver: there would this monster make a man; any strange beast there makes a man: when they will not give a doit to relieve a lame beggar, they will lazy out ten to see a dead Indian. Legged like a man and his fins like arms! Warm o' my troth! I do now let loose my opinion; hold it no longer: this is no fish, but an islander, that hath lately suffered by a thunderbolt. [Thunder] Alas, the storm is come again! my best way is to creep under his gaberdine; there is no other shelter hereabouts: misery acquaints a man with strange bed-fellows. I will here shroud till the dregs of the storm be past. [Enter STEPHANO, singing: a bottle in his hand] STEPHANO I shall no more to sea, to sea, Here shall I die ashore-- This is a very scurvy tune to sing at a man's funeral: well, here's my comfort. [Drinks] [Sings] The master, the swabber, the boatswain and I, The gunner and his mate Loved Mall, Meg and Marian and Margery, But none of us cared for Kate; For she had a tongue with a tang, Would cry to a sailor, Go hang! She loved not the savour of tar nor of pitch, Yet a tailor might scratch her where'er she did itch: Then to sea, boys, and let her go hang! This is a scurvy tune too: but here's my comfort. [Drinks] CALIBAN Do not torment me: Oh! STEPHANO What's the matter? Have we devils here? Do you put tricks upon's with savages and men of Ind, ha? I have not scaped drowning to be afeard now of your four legs; for it hath been said, As proper a man as ever went on four legs cannot make him give ground; and it shall be said so again while Stephano breathes at's nostrils. CALIBAN The spirit torments me; Oh! STEPHANO This is some monster of the isle with four legs, who hath got, as I take it, an ague. Where the devil should he learn our language? I will give him some relief, if it be but for that. if I can recover him and keep him tame and get to Naples with him, he's a present for any emperor that ever trod on neat's leather. CALIBAN Do not torment me, prithee; I'll bring my wood home faster. STEPHANO He's in his fit now and does not talk after the wisest. He shall taste of my bottle: if he have never drunk wine afore will go near to remove his fit. If I can recover him and keep him tame, I will not take too much for him; he shall pay for him that hath him, and that soundly. CALIBAN Thou dost me yet but little hurt; thou wilt anon, I know it by thy trembling: now Prosper works upon thee. STEPHANO Come on your ways; open your mouth; here is that which will give language to you, cat: open your mouth; this will shake your shaking, I can tell you, and that soundly: you cannot tell who's your friend: open your chaps again. TRINCULO I should know that voice: it should be--but he is drowned; and these are devils: O defend me! STEPHANO Four legs and two voices: a most delicate monster! His forward voice now is to speak well of his friend; his backward voice is to utter foul speeches and to detract. If all the wine in my bottle will recover him, I will help his ague. Come. Amen! I will pour some in thy other mouth. TRINCULO Stephano! STEPHANO Doth thy other mouth call me? Mercy, mercy! This is a devil, and no monster: I will leave him; I have no long spoon. TRINCULO Stephano! If thou beest Stephano, touch me and speak to me: for I am Trinculo--be not afeard--thy good friend Trinculo. STEPHANO If thou beest Trinculo, come forth: I'll pull thee by the lesser legs: if any be Trinculo's legs, these are they. Thou art very Trinculo indeed! How camest thou to be the siege of this moon-calf? can he vent Trinculos? TRINCULO I took him to be killed with a thunder-stroke. But art thou not drowned, Stephano? I hope now thou art not drowned. Is the storm overblown? I hid me under the dead moon-calf's gaberdine for fear of the storm. And art thou living, Stephano? O Stephano, two Neapolitans 'scaped! STEPHANO Prithee, do not turn me about; my stomach is not constant. CALIBAN [Aside] These be fine things, an if they be not sprites. That's a brave god and bears celestial liquor. I will kneel to him. STEPHANO How didst thou 'scape? How camest thou hither? swear by this bottle how thou camest hither. I escaped upon a butt of sack which the sailors heaved o'erboard, by this bottle; which I made of the bark of a tree with mine own hands since I was cast ashore. CALIBAN I'll swear upon that bottle to be thy true subject; for the liquor is not earthly. STEPHANO Here; swear then how thou escapedst. TRINCULO Swum ashore. man, like a duck: I can swim like a duck, I'll be sworn. STEPHANO Here, kiss the book. Though thou canst swim like a duck, thou art made like a goose. TRINCULO O Stephano. hast any more of this? STEPHANO The whole butt, man: my cellar is in a rock by the sea-side where my wine is hid. How now, moon-calf! how does thine ague? CALIBAN Hast thou not dropp'd from heaven? STEPHANO Out o' the moon, I do assure thee: I was the man i' the moon when time was. CALIBAN I have seen thee in her and I do adore thee: My mistress show'd me thee and thy dog and thy bush. STEPHANO Come, swear to that; kiss the book: I will furnish it anon with new contents swear. TRINCULO By this good light, this is a very shallow monster! I afeard of him! A very weak monster! The man i' the moon! A most poor credulous monster! Well drawn, monster, in good sooth! CALIBAN I'll show thee every fertile inch o' th' island; And I will kiss thy foot: I prithee, be my god. TRINCULO By this light, a most perfidious and drunken monster! when 's god's asleep, he'll rob his bottle. CALIBAN I'll kiss thy foot; I'll swear myself thy subject. STEPHANO Come on then; down, and swear. TRINCULO I shall laugh myself to death at this puppy-headed monster. A most scurvy monster! I could find in my heart to beat him,-- STEPHANO Come, kiss. TRINCULO But that the poor monster's in drink: an abominable monster! CALIBAN I'll show thee the best springs; I'll pluck thee berries; I'll fish for thee and get thee wood enough. A plague upon the tyrant that I serve! I'll bear him no more sticks, but follow thee, Thou wondrous man. TRINCULO A most ridiculous monster, to make a wonder of a Poor drunkard! CALIBAN I prithee, let me bring thee where crabs grow; And I with my long nails will dig thee pignuts; Show thee a jay's nest and instruct thee how To snare the nimble marmoset; I'll bring thee To clustering filberts and sometimes I'll get thee Young scamels from the rock. Wilt thou go with me? STEPHANO I prithee now, lead the way without any more talking. Trinculo, the king and all our company else being drowned, we will inherit here: here; bear my bottle: fellow Trinculo, we'll fill him by and by again. CALIBAN [Sings drunkenly] Farewell master; farewell, farewell! TRINCULO A howling monster: a drunken monster! CALIBAN No more dams I'll make for fish Nor fetch in firing At requiring; Nor scrape trencher, nor wash dish 'Ban, 'Ban, Cacaliban Has a new master: get a new man. Freedom, hey-day! hey-day, freedom! freedom, hey-day, freedom! STEPHANO O brave monster! Lead the way. [Exeunt] THE TEMPEST ACT III SCENE I Before PROSPERO'S Cell. [Enter FERDINAND, bearing a log] FERDINAND There be some sports are painful, and their labour Delight in them sets off: some kinds of baseness Are nobly undergone and most poor matters Point to rich ends. This my mean task Would be as heavy to me as odious, but The mistress which I serve quickens what's dead And makes my labours pleasures: O, she is Ten times more gentle than her father's crabbed, And he's composed of harshness. I must remove Some thousands of these logs and pile them up, Upon a sore injunction: my sweet mistress Weeps when she sees me work, and says, such baseness Had never like executor. I forget: But these sweet thoughts do even refresh my labours, Most busy lest, when I do it. [Enter MIRANDA; and PROSPERO at a distance, unseen] MIRANDA Alas, now, pray you, Work not so hard: I would the lightning had Burnt up those logs that you are enjoin'd to pile! Pray, set it down and rest you: when this burns, 'Twill weep for having wearied you. My father Is hard at study; pray now, rest yourself; He's safe for these three hours. FERDINAND O most dear mistress, The sun will set before I shall discharge What I must strive to do. MIRANDA If you'll sit down, I'll bear your logs the while: pray, give me that; I'll carry it to the pile. FERDINAND No, precious creature; I had rather crack my sinews, break my back, Than you should such dishonour undergo, While I sit lazy by. MIRANDA It would become me As well as it does you: and I should do it With much more ease; for my good will is to it, And yours it is against. PROSPERO Poor worm, thou art infected! This visitation shows it. MIRANDA You look wearily. FERDINAND No, noble mistress;'tis fresh morning with me When you are by at night. I do beseech you-- Chiefly that I might set it in my prayers-- What is your name? MIRANDA Miranda.--O my father, I have broke your hest to say so! FERDINAND Admired Miranda! Indeed the top of admiration! worth What's dearest to the world! Full many a lady I have eyed with best regard and many a time The harmony of their tongues hath into bondage Brought my too diligent ear: for several virtues Have I liked several women; never any With so fun soul, but some defect in her Did quarrel with the noblest grace she owed And put it to the foil: but you, O you, So perfect and so peerless, are created Of every creature's best! MIRANDA I do not know One of my sex; no woman's face remember, Save, from my glass, mine own; nor have I seen More that I may call men than you, good friend, And my dear father: how features are abroad, I am skilless of; but, by my modesty, The jewel in my dower, I would not wish Any companion in the world but you, Nor can imagination form a shape, Besides yourself, to like of. But I prattle Something too wildly and my father's precepts I therein do forget. FERDINAND I am in my condition A prince, Miranda; I do think, a king; I would, not so!--and would no more endure This wooden slavery than to suffer The flesh-fly blow my mouth. Hear my soul speak: The very instant that I saw you, did My heart fly to your service; there resides, To make me slave to it; and for your sake Am I this patient log--man. MIRANDA Do you love me? FERDINAND O heaven, O earth, bear witness to this sound And crown what I profess with kind event If I speak true! if hollowly, invert What best is boded me to mischief! I Beyond all limit of what else i' the world Do love, prize, honour you. MIRANDA I am a fool To weep at what I am glad of. PROSPERO Fair encounter Of two most rare affections! Heavens rain grace On that which breeds between 'em! FERDINAND Wherefore weep you? MIRANDA At mine unworthiness that dare not offer What I desire to give, and much less take What I shall die to want. But this is trifling; And all the more it seeks to hide itself, The bigger bulk it shows. Hence, bashful cunning! And prompt me, plain and holy innocence! I am your wife, it you will marry me; If not, I'll die your maid: to be your fellow You may deny me; but I'll be your servant, Whether you will or no. FERDINAND My mistress, dearest; And I thus humble ever. MIRANDA My husband, then? FERDINAND Ay, with a heart as willing As bondage e'er of freedom: here's my hand. MIRANDA And mine, with my heart in't; and now farewell Till half an hour hence. FERDINAND A thousand thousand! [Exeunt FERDINAND and MIRANDA severally] PROSPERO So glad of this as they I cannot be, Who are surprised withal; but my rejoicing At nothing can be more. I'll to my book, For yet ere supper-time must I perform Much business appertaining. [Exit] THE TEMPEST ACT III SCENE II Another part of the island. [Enter CALIBAN, STEPHANO, and TRINCULO] STEPHANO Tell not me; when the butt is out, we will drink water; not a drop before: therefore bear up, and board 'em. Servant-monster, drink to me. TRINCULO Servant-monster! the folly of this island! They say there's but five upon this isle: we are three of them; if th' other two be brained like us, the state totters. STEPHANO Drink, servant-monster, when I bid thee: thy eyes are almost set in thy head. TRINCULO Where should they be set else? he were a brave monster indeed, if they were set in his tail. STEPHANO My man-monster hath drown'd his tongue in sack: for my part, the sea cannot drown me; I swam, ere I could recover the shore, five and thirty leagues off and on. By this light, thou shalt be my lieutenant, monster, or my standard. TRINCULO Your lieutenant, if you list; he's no standard. STEPHANO We'll not run, Monsieur Monster. TRINCULO Nor go neither; but you'll lie like dogs and yet say nothing neither. STEPHANO Moon-calf, speak once in thy life, if thou beest a good moon-calf. CALIBAN How does thy honour? Let me lick thy shoe. I'll not serve him; he's not valiant. TRINCULO Thou liest, most ignorant monster: I am in case to justle a constable. Why, thou deboshed fish thou, was there ever man a coward that hath drunk so much sack as I to-day? Wilt thou tell a monstrous lie, being but half a fish and half a monster? CALIBAN Lo, how he mocks me! wilt thou let him, my lord? TRINCULO 'Lord' quoth he! That a monster should be such a natural! CALIBAN Lo, lo, again! bite him to death, I prithee. STEPHANO Trinculo, keep a good tongue in your head: if you prove a mutineer,--the next tree! The poor monster's my subject and he shall not suffer indignity. CALIBAN I thank my noble lord. Wilt thou be pleased to hearken once again to the suit I made to thee? STEPHANO Marry, will I kneel and repeat it; I will stand, and so shall Trinculo. [Enter ARIEL, invisible] CALIBAN As I told thee before, I am subject to a tyrant, a sorcerer, that by his cunning hath cheated me of the island. ARIEL Thou liest. CALIBAN Thou liest, thou jesting monkey, thou: I would my valiant master would destroy thee! I do not lie. STEPHANO Trinculo, if you trouble him any more in's tale, by this hand, I will supplant some of your teeth. TRINCULO Why, I said nothing. STEPHANO Mum, then, and no more. Proceed. CALIBAN I say, by sorcery he got this isle; From me he got it. if thy greatness will Revenge it on him,--for I know thou darest, But this thing dare not,-- STEPHANO That's most certain. CALIBAN Thou shalt be lord of it and I'll serve thee. STEPHANO How now shall this be compassed? Canst thou bring me to the party? CALIBAN Yea, yea, my lord: I'll yield him thee asleep, Where thou mayst knock a nail into his bead. ARIEL Thou liest; thou canst not. CALIBAN What a pied ninny's this! Thou scurvy patch! I do beseech thy greatness, give him blows And take his bottle from him: when that's gone He shall drink nought but brine; for I'll not show him Where the quick freshes are. STEPHANO Trinculo, run into no further danger: interrupt the monster one word further, and, by this hand, I'll turn my mercy out o' doors and make a stock-fish of thee. TRINCULO Why, what did I? I did nothing. I'll go farther off. STEPHANO Didst thou not say he lied? ARIEL Thou liest. STEPHANO Do I so? take thou that. [Beats TRINCULO] As you like this, give me the lie another time. TRINCULO I did not give the lie. Out o' your wits and bearing too? A pox o' your bottle! this can sack and drinking do. A murrain on your monster, and the devil take your fingers! CALIBAN Ha, ha, ha! STEPHANO Now, forward with your tale. Prithee, stand farther off. CALIBAN Beat him enough: after a little time I'll beat him too. STEPHANO Stand farther. Come, proceed. CALIBAN Why, as I told thee, 'tis a custom with him, I' th' afternoon to sleep: there thou mayst brain him, Having first seized his books, or with a log Batter his skull, or paunch him with a stake, Or cut his wezand with thy knife. Remember First to possess his books; for without them He's but a sot, as I am, nor hath not One spirit to command: they all do hate him As rootedly as I. Burn but his books. He has brave utensils,--for so he calls them-- Which when he has a house, he'll deck withal And that most deeply to consider is The beauty of his daughter; he himself Calls her a nonpareil: I never saw a woman, But only Sycorax my dam and she; But she as far surpasseth Sycorax As great'st does least. STEPHANO Is it so brave a lass? CALIBAN Ay, lord; she will become thy bed, I warrant. And bring thee forth brave brood. STEPHANO Monster, I will kill this man: his daughter and I will be king and queen--save our graces!--and Trinculo and thyself shall be viceroys. Dost thou like the plot, Trinculo? TRINCULO Excellent. STEPHANO Give me thy hand: I am sorry I beat thee; but, while thou livest, keep a good tongue in thy head. CALIBAN Within this half hour will he be asleep: Wilt thou destroy him then? STEPHANO Ay, on mine honour. ARIEL This will I tell my master. CALIBAN Thou makest me merry; I am full of pleasure: Let us be jocund: will you troll the catch You taught me but while-ere? STEPHANO At thy request, monster, I will do reason, any reason. Come on, Trinculo, let us sing. [Sings] Flout 'em and scout 'em And scout 'em and flout 'em Thought is free. CALIBAN That's not the tune. [Ariel plays the tune on a tabour and pipe] STEPHANO What is this same? TRINCULO This is the tune of our catch, played by the picture of Nobody. STEPHANO If thou beest a man, show thyself in thy likeness: if thou beest a devil, take't as thou list. TRINCULO O, forgive me my sins! STEPHANO He that dies pays all debts: I defy thee. Mercy upon us! CALIBAN Art thou afeard? STEPHANO No, monster, not I. CALIBAN Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises, Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices That, if I then had waked after long sleep, Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming, The clouds methought would open and show riches Ready to drop upon me that, when I waked, I cried to dream again. STEPHANO This will prove a brave kingdom to me, where I shall have my music for nothing. CALIBAN When Prospero is destroyed. STEPHANO That shall be by and by: I remember the story. TRINCULO The sound is going away; let's follow it, and after do our work. STEPHANO Lead, monster; we'll follow. I would I could see this tabourer; he lays it on. TRINCULO Wilt come? I'll follow, Stephano. [Exeunt] THE TEMPEST ACT III SCENE III Another part of the island. [Enter ALONSO, SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, GONZALO, ADRIAN, FRANCISCO, and others] GONZALO By'r lakin, I can go no further, sir; My old bones ache: here's a maze trod indeed Through forth-rights and meanders! By your patience, I needs must rest me. ALONSO Old lord, I cannot blame thee, Who am myself attach'd with weariness, To the dulling of my spirits: sit down, and rest. Even here I will put off my hope and keep it No longer for my flatterer: he is drown'd Whom thus we stray to find, and the sea mocks Our frustrate search on land. Well, let him go. ANTONIO [Aside to SEBASTIAN] I am right glad that he's so out of hope. Do not, for one repulse, forego the purpose That you resolved to effect. SEBASTIAN [Aside to ANTONIO] The next advantage Will we take throughly. ANTONIO [Aside to SEBASTIAN] Let it be to-night; For, now they are oppress'd with travel, they Will not, nor cannot, use such vigilance As when they are fresh. SEBASTIAN [Aside to ANTONIO] I say, to-night: no more. [Solemn and strange music] ALONSO What harmony is this? My good friends, hark! GONZALO Marvellous sweet music! [Enter PROSPERO above, invisible. Enter several strange Shapes, bringing in a banquet; they dance about it with gentle actions of salutation; and, inviting the King, &c. to eat, they depart] ALONSO Give us kind keepers, heavens! What were these? SEBASTIAN A living drollery. Now I will believe That there are unicorns, that in Arabia There is one tree, the phoenix' throne, one phoenix At this hour reigning there. ANTONIO I'll believe both; And what does else want credit, come to me, And I'll be sworn 'tis true: travellers ne'er did lie, Though fools at home condemn 'em. GONZALO If in Naples I should report this now, would they believe me? If I should say, I saw such islanders-- For, certes, these are people of the island-- Who, though they are of monstrous shape, yet, note, Their manners are more gentle-kind than of Our human generation you shall find Many, nay, almost any. PROSPERO [Aside] Honest lord, Thou hast said well; for some of you there present Are worse than devils. ALONSO I cannot too much muse Such shapes, such gesture and such sound, expressing, Although they want the use of tongue, a kind Of excellent dumb discourse. PROSPERO [Aside] Praise in departing. FRANCISCO They vanish'd strangely. SEBASTIAN No matter, since They have left their viands behind; for we have stomachs. Will't please you taste of what is here? ALONSO Not I. GONZALO Faith, sir, you need not fear. When we were boys, Who would believe that there were mountaineers Dew-lapp'd like bulls, whose throats had hanging at 'em Wallets of flesh? or that there were such men Whose heads stood in their breasts? which now we find Each putter-out of five for one will bring us Good warrant of. ALONSO I will stand to and feed, Although my last: no matter, since I feel The best is past. Brother, my lord the duke, Stand to and do as we. [Thunder and lightning. Enter ARIEL, like a harpy; claps his wings upon the table; and, with a quaint device, the banquet vanishes] ARIEL You are three men of sin, whom Destiny, That hath to instrument this lower world And what is in't, the never-surfeited sea Hath caused to belch up you; and on this island Where man doth not inhabit; you 'mongst men Being most unfit to live. I have made you mad; And even with such-like valour men hang and drown Their proper selves. [ALONSO, SEBASTIAN &c. draw their swords] You fools! I and my fellows Are ministers of Fate: the elements, Of whom your swords are temper'd, may as well Wound the loud winds, or with bemock'd-at stabs Kill the still-closing waters, as diminish One dowle that's in my plume: my fellow-ministers Are like invulnerable. If you could hurt, Your swords are now too massy for your strengths And will not be uplifted. But remember-- For that's my business to you--that you three From Milan did supplant good Prospero; Exposed unto the sea, which hath requit it, Him and his innocent child: for which foul deed The powers, delaying, not forgetting, have Incensed the seas and shores, yea, all the creatures, Against your peace. Thee of thy son, Alonso, They have bereft; and do pronounce by me: Lingering perdition, worse than any death Can be at once, shall step by step attend You and your ways; whose wraths to guard you from-- Which here, in this most desolate isle, else falls Upon your heads--is nothing but heart-sorrow And a clear life ensuing. [He vanishes in thunder; then, to soft music enter the Shapes again, and dance, with mocks and mows, and carrying out the table] PROSPERO Bravely the figure of this harpy hast thou Perform'd, my Ariel; a grace it had, devouring: Of my instruction hast thou nothing bated In what thou hadst to say: so, with good life And observation strange, my meaner ministers Their several kinds have done. My high charms work And these mine enemies are all knit up In their distractions; they now are in my power; And in these fits I leave them, while I visit Young Ferdinand, whom they suppose is drown'd, And his and mine loved darling. [Exit above] GONZALO I' the name of something holy, sir, why stand you In this strange stare? ALONSO O, it is monstrous, monstrous: Methought the billows spoke and told me of it; The winds did sing it to me, and the thunder, That deep and dreadful organ-pipe, pronounced The name of Prosper: it did bass my trespass. Therefore my son i' the ooze is bedded, and I'll seek him deeper than e'er plummet sounded And with him there lie mudded. [Exit] SEBASTIAN But one fiend at a time, I'll fight their legions o'er. ANTONIO I'll be thy second. [Exeunt SEBASTIAN, and ANTONIO] GONZALO All three of them are desperate: their great guilt, Like poison given to work a great time after, Now 'gins to bite the spirits. I do beseech you That are of suppler joints, follow them swiftly And hinder them from what this ecstasy May now provoke them to. ADRIAN Follow, I pray you. [Exeunt] THE TEMPEST ACT IV SCENE I Before PROSPERO'S cell. [Enter PROSPERO, FERDINAND, and MIRANDA] PROSPERO If I have too austerely punish'd you, Your compensation makes amends, for I Have given you here a third of mine own life, Or that for which I live; who once again I tender to thy hand: all thy vexations Were but my trials of thy love and thou Hast strangely stood the test here, afore Heaven, I ratify this my rich gift. O Ferdinand, Do not smile at me that I boast her off, For thou shalt find she will outstrip all praise And make it halt behind her. FERDINAND I do believe it Against an oracle. PROSPERO Then, as my gift and thine own acquisition Worthily purchased take my daughter: but If thou dost break her virgin-knot before All sanctimonious ceremonies may With full and holy rite be minister'd, No sweet aspersion shall the heavens let fall To make this contract grow: but barren hate, Sour-eyed disdain and discord shall bestrew The union of your bed with weeds so loathly That you shall hate it both: therefore take heed, As Hymen's lamps shall light you. FERDINAND As I hope For quiet days, fair issue and long life, With such love as 'tis now, the murkiest den, The most opportune place, the strong'st suggestion. Our worser genius can, shall never melt Mine honour into lust, to take away The edge of that day's celebration When I shall think: or Phoebus' steeds are founder'd, Or Night kept chain'd below. PROSPERO Fairly spoke. Sit then and talk with her; she is thine own. What, Ariel! my industrious servant, Ariel! [Enter ARIEL] ARIEL What would my potent master? here I am. PROSPERO Thou and thy meaner fellows your last service Did worthily perform; and I must use you In such another trick. Go bring the rabble, O'er whom I give thee power, here to this place: Incite them to quick motion; for I must Bestow upon the eyes of this young couple Some vanity of mine art: it is my promise, And they expect it from me. ARIEL Presently? PROSPERO Ay, with a twink. ARIEL Before you can say 'come' and 'go,' And breathe twice and cry 'so, so,' Each one, tripping on his toe, Will be here with mop and mow. Do you love me, master? no? PROSPERO Dearly my delicate Ariel. Do not approach Till thou dost hear me call. ARIEL Well, I conceive. [Exit] PROSPERO Look thou be true; do not give dalliance Too much the rein: the strongest oaths are straw To the fire i' the blood: be more abstemious, Or else, good night your vow! FERDINAND I warrant you sir; The white cold virgin snow upon my heart Abates the ardour of my liver. PROSPERO Well. Now come, my Ariel! bring a corollary, Rather than want a spirit: appear and pertly! No tongue! all eyes! be silent. [Soft music] [Enter IRIS] IRIS Ceres, most bounteous lady, thy rich leas Of wheat, rye, barley, vetches, oats and pease; Thy turfy mountains, where live nibbling sheep, And flat meads thatch'd with stover, them to keep; Thy banks with pioned and twilled brims, Which spongy April at thy hest betrims, To make cold nymphs chaste crowns; and thy broom -groves, Whose shadow the dismissed bachelor loves, Being lass-lorn: thy pole-clipt vineyard; And thy sea-marge, sterile and rocky-hard, Where thou thyself dost air;--the queen o' the sky, Whose watery arch and messenger am I, Bids thee leave these, and with her sovereign grace, Here on this grass-plot, in this very place, To come and sport: her peacocks fly amain: Approach, rich Ceres, her to entertain. [Enter CERES] CERES Hail, many-colour'd messenger, that ne'er Dost disobey the wife of Jupiter; Who with thy saffron wings upon my flowers Diffusest honey-drops, refreshing showers, And with each end of thy blue bow dost crown My bosky acres and my unshrubb'd down, Rich scarf to my proud earth; why hath thy queen Summon'd me hither, to this short-grass'd green? IRIS A contract of true love to celebrate; And some donation freely to estate On the blest lovers. CERES Tell me, heavenly bow, If Venus or her son, as thou dost know, Do now attend the queen? Since they did plot The means that dusky Dis my daughter got, Her and her blind boy's scandal'd company I have forsworn. IRIS Of her society Be not afraid: I met her deity Cutting the clouds towards Paphos and her son Dove-drawn with her. Here thought they to have done Some wanton charm upon this man and maid, Whose vows are, that no bed-right shall be paid Till Hymen's torch be lighted: but vain; Mars's hot minion is returned again; Her waspish-headed son has broke his arrows, Swears he will shoot no more but play with sparrows And be a boy right out. CERES High'st queen of state, Great Juno, comes; I know her by her gait. [Enter JUNO] JUNO How does my bounteous sister? Go with me To bless this twain, that they may prosperous be And honour'd in their issue. [They sing:] JUNO Honour, riches, marriage-blessing, Long continuance, and increasing, Hourly joys be still upon you! Juno sings her blessings upon you. CERES Earth's increase, foison plenty, Barns and garners never empty, Vines and clustering bunches growing, Plants with goodly burthen bowing; Spring come to you at the farthest In the very end of harvest! Scarcity and want shall shun you; Ceres' blessing so is on you. FERDINAND This is a most majestic vision, and Harmoniously charmingly. May I be bold To think these spirits? PROSPERO Spirits, which by mine art I have from their confines call'd to enact My present fancies. FERDINAND Let me live here ever; So rare a wonder'd father and a wife Makes this place Paradise. [Juno and Ceres whisper, and send Iris on employment] PROSPERO Sweet, now, silence! Juno and Ceres whisper seriously; There's something else to do: hush, and be mute, Or else our spell is marr'd. IRIS You nymphs, call'd Naiads, of the windring brooks, With your sedged crowns and ever-harmless looks, Leave your crisp channels and on this green land Answer your summons; Juno does command: Come, temperate nymphs, and help to celebrate A contract of true love; be not too late. [Enter certain Nymphs] You sunburnt sicklemen, of August weary, Come hither from the furrow and be merry: Make holiday; your rye-straw hats put on And these fresh nymphs encounter every one In country footing. [Enter certain Reapers, properly habited: they join with the Nymphs in a graceful dance; towards the end whereof PROSPERO starts suddenly, and speaks; after which, to a strange, hollow, and confused noise, they heavily vanish] PROSPERO [Aside] I had forgot that foul conspiracy Of the beast Caliban and his confederates Against my life: the minute of their plot Is almost come. [To the Spirits] Well done! avoid; no more! FERDINAND This is strange: your father's in some passion That works him strongly. MIRANDA Never till this day Saw I him touch'd with anger so distemper'd. PROSPERO You do look, my son, in a moved sort, As if you were dismay'd: be cheerful, sir. Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits and Are melted into air, into thin air: And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Ye all which it inherit, shall dissolve And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep. Sir, I am vex'd; Bear with my weakness; my, brain is troubled: Be not disturb'd with my infirmity: If you be pleased, retire into my cell And there repose: a turn or two I'll walk, To still my beating mind. FERDINAND | | We wish your peace. MIRANDA | [Exeunt] PROSPERO Come with a thought I thank thee, Ariel: come. [Enter ARIEL] ARIEL Thy thoughts I cleave to. What's thy pleasure? PROSPERO Spirit, We must prepare to meet with Caliban. ARIEL Ay, my commander: when I presented Ceres, I thought to have told thee of it, but I fear'd Lest I might anger thee. PROSPERO Say again, where didst thou leave these varlets? ARIEL I told you, sir, they were red-hot with drinking; So fun of valour that they smote the air For breathing in their faces; beat the ground For kissing of their feet; yet always bending Towards their project. Then I beat my tabour; At which, like unback'd colts, they prick'd their ears, Advanced their eyelids, lifted up their noses As they smelt music: so I charm'd their ears That calf-like they my lowing follow'd through Tooth'd briers, sharp furzes, pricking goss and thorns, Which entered their frail shins: at last I left them I' the filthy-mantled pool beyond your cell, There dancing up to the chins, that the foul lake O'erstunk their feet. PROSPERO This was well done, my bird. Thy shape invisible retain thou still: The trumpery in my house, go bring it hither, For stale to catch these thieves. ARIEL I go, I go. [Exit] PROSPERO A devil, a born devil, on whose nature Nurture can never stick; on whom my pains, Humanely taken, all, all lost, quite lost; And as with age his body uglier grows, So his mind cankers. I will plague them all, Even to roaring. [Re-enter ARIEL, loaden with glistering apparel, &c] Come, hang them on this line. [PROSPERO and ARIEL remain invisible. Enter CALIBAN, STEPHANO, and TRINCULO, all wet] CALIBAN Pray you, tread softly, that the blind mole may not Hear a foot fall: we now are near his cell. STEPHANO Monster, your fairy, which you say is a harmless fairy, has done little better than played the Jack with us. TRINCULO Monster, I do smell all horse-piss; at which my nose is in great indignation. STEPHANO So is mine. Do you hear, monster? If I should take a displeasure against you, look you,-- TRINCULO Thou wert but a lost monster. CALIBAN Good my lord, give me thy favour still. Be patient, for the prize I'll bring thee to Shall hoodwink this mischance: therefore speak softly. All's hush'd as midnight yet. TRINCULO Ay, but to lose our bottles in the pool,-- STEPHANO There is not only disgrace and dishonour in that, monster, but an infinite loss. TRINCULO That's more to me than my wetting: yet this is your harmless fairy, monster. STEPHANO I will fetch off my bottle, though I be o'er ears for my labour. CALIBAN Prithee, my king, be quiet. Seest thou here, This is the mouth o' the cell: no noise, and enter. Do that good mischief which may make this island Thine own for ever, and I, thy Caliban, For aye thy foot-licker. STEPHANO Give me thy hand. I do begin to have bloody thoughts. TRINCULO O king Stephano! O peer! O worthy Stephano! look what a wardrobe here is for thee! CALIBAN Let it alone, thou fool; it is but trash. TRINCULO O, ho, monster! we know what belongs to a frippery. O king Stephano! STEPHANO Put off that gown, Trinculo; by this hand, I'll have that gown. TRINCULO Thy grace shall have it. CALIBAN The dropsy drown this fool I what do you mean To dote thus on such luggage? Let's alone And do the murder first: if he awake, From toe to crown he'll fill our skins with pinches, Make us strange stuff. STEPHANO Be you quiet, monster. Mistress line, is not this my jerkin? Now is the jerkin under the line: now, jerkin, you are like to lose your hair and prove a bald jerkin. TRINCULO Do, do: we steal by line and level, an't like your grace. STEPHANO I thank thee for that jest; here's a garment for't: wit shall not go unrewarded while I am king of this country. 'Steal by line and level' is an excellent pass of pate; there's another garment for't. TRINCULO Monster, come, put some lime upon your fingers, and away with the rest. CALIBAN I will have none on't: we shall lose our time, And all be turn'd to barnacles, or to apes With foreheads villanous low. STEPHANO Monster, lay-to your fingers: help to bear this away where my hogshead of wine is, or I'll turn you out of my kingdom: go to, carry this. TRINCULO And this. STEPHANO Ay, and this. [A noise of hunters heard. Enter divers Spirits, in shape of dogs and hounds, and hunt them about, PROSPERO and ARIEL setting them on] PROSPERO Hey, Mountain, hey! ARIEL Silver I there it goes, Silver! PROSPERO Fury, Fury! there, Tyrant, there! hark! hark! [CALIBAN, STEPHANO, and TRINCULO, are driven out] Go charge my goblins that they grind their joints With dry convulsions, shorten up their sinews With aged cramps, and more pinch-spotted make them Than pard or cat o' mountain. ARIEL Hark, they roar! PROSPERO Let them be hunted soundly. At this hour Lie at my mercy all mine enemies: Shortly shall all my labours end, and thou Shalt have the air at freedom: for a little Follow, and do me service. [Exeunt] THE TEMPEST ACT V SCENE I Before PROSPERO'S cell. [Enter PROSPERO in his magic robes, and ARIEL] PROSPERO Now does my project gather to a head: My charms crack not; my spirits obey; and time Goes upright with his carriage. How's the day? ARIEL On the sixth hour; at which time, my lord, You said our work should cease. PROSPERO I did say so, When first I raised the tempest. Say, my spirit, How fares the king and's followers? ARIEL Confined together In the same fashion as you gave in charge, Just as you left them; all prisoners, sir, In the line-grove which weather-fends your cell; They cannot budge till your release. The king, His brother and yours, abide all three distracted And the remainder mourning over them, Brimful of sorrow and dismay; but chiefly Him that you term'd, sir, 'The good old lord Gonzalo;' His tears run down his beard, like winter's drops From eaves of reeds. Your charm so strongly works 'em That if you now beheld them, your affections Would become tender. PROSPERO Dost thou think so, spirit? ARIEL Mine would, sir, were I human. PROSPERO And mine shall. Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling Of their afflictions, and shall not myself, One of their kind, that relish all as sharply, Passion as they, be kindlier moved than thou art? Though with their high wrongs I am struck to the quick, Yet with my nobler reason 'gaitist my fury Do I take part: the rarer action is In virtue than in vengeance: they being penitent, The sole drift of my purpose doth extend Not a frown further. Go release them, Ariel: My charms I'll break, their senses I'll restore, And they shall be themselves. ARIEL I'll fetch them, sir. [Exit] PROSPERO Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves, And ye that on the sands with printless foot Do chase the ebbing Neptune and do fly him When he comes back; you demi-puppets that By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make, Whereof the ewe not bites, and you whose pastime Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid, Weak masters though ye be, I have bedimm'd The noontide sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds, And 'twixt the green sea and the azured vault Set roaring war: to the dread rattling thunder Have I given fire and rifted Jove's stout oak With his own bolt; the strong-based promontory Have I made shake and by the spurs pluck'd up The pine and cedar: graves at my command Have waked their sleepers, oped, and let 'em forth By my so potent art. But this rough magic I here abjure, and, when I have required Some heavenly music, which even now I do, To work mine end upon their senses that This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff, Bury it certain fathoms in the earth, And deeper than did ever plummet sound I'll drown my book. [Solemn music] [Re-enter ARIEL before: then ALONSO, with a frantic gesture, attended by GONZALO; SEBASTIAN and ANTONIO in like manner, attended by ADRIAN and FRANCISCO they all enter the circle which PROSPERO had made, and there stand charmed; which PROSPERO observing, speaks:] A solemn air and the best comforter To an unsettled fancy cure thy brains, Now useless, boil'd within thy skull! There stand, For you are spell-stopp'd. Holy Gonzalo, honourable man, Mine eyes, even sociable to the show of thine, Fall fellowly drops. The charm dissolves apace, And as the morning steals upon the night, Melting the darkness, so their rising senses Begin to chase the ignorant fumes that mantle Their clearer reason. O good Gonzalo, My true preserver, and a loyal sir To him you follow'st! I will pay thy graces Home both in word and deed. Most cruelly Didst thou, Alonso, use me and my daughter: Thy brother was a furtherer in the act. Thou art pinch'd fort now, Sebastian. Flesh and blood, You, brother mine, that entertain'd ambition, Expell'd remorse and nature; who, with Sebastian, Whose inward pinches therefore are most strong, Would here have kill'd your king; I do forgive thee, Unnatural though thou art. Their understanding Begins to swell, and the approaching tide Will shortly fill the reasonable shore That now lies foul and muddy. Not one of them That yet looks on me, or would know me Ariel, Fetch me the hat and rapier in my cell: I will discase me, and myself present As I was sometime Milan: quickly, spirit; Thou shalt ere long be free. [ARIEL sings and helps to attire him] Where the bee sucks. there suck I: In a cowslip's bell I lie; There I couch when owls do cry. On the bat's back I do fly After summer merrily. Merrily, merrily shall I live now Under the blossom that hangs on the bough. PROSPERO Why, that's my dainty Ariel! I shall miss thee: But yet thou shalt have freedom: so, so, so. To the king's ship, invisible as thou art: There shalt thou find the mariners asleep Under the hatches; the master and the boatswain Being awake, enforce them to this place, And presently, I prithee. ARIEL I drink the air before me, and return Or ere your pulse twice beat. [Exit] GONZALO All torment, trouble, wonder and amazement Inhabits here: some heavenly power guide us Out of this fearful country! PROSPERO Behold, sir king, The wronged Duke of Milan, Prospero: For more assurance that a living prince Does now speak to thee, I embrace thy body; And to thee and thy company I bid A hearty welcome. ALONSO Whether thou best he or no, Or some enchanted trifle to abuse me, As late I have been, I not know: thy pulse Beats as of flesh and blood; and, since I saw thee, The affliction of my mind amends, with which, I fear, a madness held me: this must crave, An if this be at all, a most strange story. Thy dukedom I resign and do entreat Thou pardon me my wrongs. But how should Prospero Be living and be here? PROSPERO First, noble friend, Let me embrace thine age, whose honour cannot Be measured or confined. GONZALO Whether this be Or be not, I'll not swear. PROSPERO You do yet taste Some subtilties o' the isle, that will not let you Believe things certain. Welcome, my friends all! [Aside to SEBASTIAN and ANTONIO] But you, my brace of lords, were I so minded, I here could pluck his highness' frown upon you And justify you traitors: at this time I will tell no tales. SEBASTIAN [Aside] The devil speaks in him. PROSPERO No. For you, most wicked sir, whom to call brother Would even infect my mouth, I do forgive Thy rankest fault; all of them; and require My dukedom of thee, which perforce, I know, Thou must restore. ALONSO If thou be'st Prospero, Give us particulars of thy preservation; How thou hast met us here, who three hours since Were wreck'd upon this shore; where I have lost-- How sharp the point of this remembrance is!-- My dear son Ferdinand. PROSPERO I am woe for't, sir. ALONSO Irreparable is the loss, and patience Says it is past her cure. PROSPERO I rather think You have not sought her help, of whose soft grace For the like loss I have her sovereign aid And rest myself content. ALONSO You the like loss! PROSPERO As great to me as late; and, supportable To make the dear loss, have I means much weaker Than you may call to comfort you, for I Have lost my daughter. ALONSO A daughter? O heavens, that they were living both in Naples, The king and queen there! that they were, I wish Myself were mudded in that oozy bed Where my son lies. When did you lose your daughter? PROSPERO In this last tempest. I perceive these lords At this encounter do so much admire That they devour their reason and scarce think Their eyes do offices of truth, their words Are natural breath: but, howsoe'er you have Been justled from your senses, know for certain That I am Prospero and that very duke Which was thrust forth of Milan, who most strangely Upon this shore, where you were wreck'd, was landed, To be the lord on't. No more yet of this; For 'tis a chronicle of day by day, Not a relation for a breakfast nor Befitting this first meeting. Welcome, sir; This cell's my court: here have I few attendants And subjects none abroad: pray you, look in. My dukedom since you have given me again, I will requite you with as good a thing; At least bring forth a wonder, to content ye As much as me my dukedom. [Here PROSPERO discovers FERDINAND and MIRANDA playing at chess] MIRANDA Sweet lord, you play me false. FERDINAND No, my dear'st love, I would not for the world. MIRANDA Yes, for a score of kingdoms you should wrangle, And I would call it, fair play. ALONSO If this prove A vision of the Island, one dear son Shall I twice lose. SEBASTIAN A most high miracle! FERDINAND Though the seas threaten, they are merciful; I have cursed them without cause. [Kneels] ALONSO Now all the blessings Of a glad father compass thee about! Arise, and say how thou camest here. MIRANDA O, wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, That has such people in't! PROSPERO 'Tis new to thee. ALONSO What is this maid with whom thou wast at play? Your eld'st acquaintance cannot be three hours: Is she the goddess that hath sever'd us, And brought us thus together? FERDINAND Sir, she is mortal; But by immortal Providence she's mine: I chose her when I could not ask my father For his advice, nor thought I had one. She Is daughter to this famous Duke of Milan, Of whom so often I have heard renown, But never saw before; of whom I have Received a second life; and second father This lady makes him to me. ALONSO I am hers: But, O, how oddly will it sound that I Must ask my child forgiveness! PROSPERO There, sir, stop: Let us not burthen our remembrance with A heaviness that's gone. GONZALO I have inly wept, Or should have spoke ere this. Look down, you god, And on this couple drop a blessed crown! For it is you that have chalk'd forth the way Which brought us hither. ALONSO I say, Amen, Gonzalo! GONZALO Was Milan thrust from Milan, that his issue Should become kings of Naples? O, rejoice Beyond a common joy, and set it down With gold on lasting pillars: In one voyage Did Claribel her husband find at Tunis, And Ferdinand, her brother, found a wife Where he himself was lost, Prospero his dukedom In a poor isle and all of us ourselves When no man was his own. ALONSO [To FERDINAND and MIRANDA] Give me your hands: Let grief and sorrow still embrace his heart That doth not wish you joy! GONZALO Be it so! Amen! [Re-enter ARIEL, with the Master and Boatswain amazedly following] O, look, sir, look, sir! here is more of us: I prophesied, if a gallows were on land, This fellow could not drown. Now, blasphemy, That swear'st grace o'erboard, not an oath on shore? Hast thou no mouth by land? What is the news? Boatswain The best news is, that we have safely found Our king and company; the next, our ship-- Which, but three glasses since, we gave out split-- Is tight and yare and bravely rigg'd as when We first put out to sea. ARIEL [Aside to PROSPERO] Sir, all this service Have I done since I went. PROSPERO [Aside to ARIEL] My tricksy spirit! ALONSO These are not natural events; they strengthen From strange to stranger. Say, how came you hither? Boatswain If I did think, sir, I were well awake, I'ld strive to tell you. We were dead of sleep, And--how we know not--all clapp'd under hatches; Where but even now with strange and several noises Of roaring, shrieking, howling, jingling chains, And more diversity of sounds, all horrible, We were awaked; straightway, at liberty; Where we, in all her trim, freshly beheld Our royal, good and gallant ship, our master Capering to eye her: on a trice, so please you, Even in a dream, were we divided from them And were brought moping hither. ARIEL [Aside to PROSPERO] Was't well done? PROSPERO [Aside to ARIEL] Bravely, my diligence. Thou shalt be free. ALONSO This is as strange a maze as e'er men trod And there is in this business more than nature Was ever conduct of: some oracle Must rectify our knowledge. PROSPERO Sir, my liege, Do not infest your mind with beating on The strangeness of this business; at pick'd leisure Which shall be shortly, single I'll resolve you, Which to you shall seem probable, of every These happen'd accidents; till when, be cheerful And think of each thing well. [Aside to ARIEL] Come hither, spirit: Set Caliban and his companions free; Untie the spell. [Exit ARIEL] How fares my gracious sir? There are yet missing of your company Some few odd lads that you remember not. [Re-enter ARIEL, driving in CALIBAN, STEPHANO and TRINCULO, in their stolen apparel] STEPHANO Every man shift for all the rest, and let no man take care for himself; for all is but fortune. Coragio, bully-monster, coragio! TRINCULO If these be true spies which I wear in my head, here's a goodly sight. CALIBAN O Setebos, these be brave spirits indeed! How fine my master is! I am afraid He will chastise me. SEBASTIAN Ha, ha! What things are these, my lord Antonio? Will money buy 'em? ANTONIO Very like; one of them Is a plain fish, and, no doubt, marketable. PROSPERO Mark but the badges of these men, my lords, Then say if they be true. This mis-shapen knave, His mother was a witch, and one so strong That could control the moon, make flows and ebbs, And deal in her command without her power. These three have robb'd me; and this demi-devil-- For he's a bastard one--had plotted with them To take my life. Two of these fellows you Must know and own; this thing of darkness! Acknowledge mine. CALIBAN I shall be pinch'd to death. ALONSO Is not this Stephano, my drunken butler? SEBASTIAN He is drunk now: where had he wine? ALONSO And Trinculo is reeling ripe: where should they Find this grand liquor that hath gilded 'em? How camest thou in this pickle? TRINCULO I have been in such a pickle since I saw you last that, I fear me, will never out of my bones: I shall not fear fly-blowing. SEBASTIAN Why, how now, Stephano! STEPHANO O, touch me not; I am not Stephano, but a cramp. PROSPERO You'ld be king o' the isle, sirrah? STEPHANO I should have been a sore one then. ALONSO This is a strange thing as e'er I look'd on. [Pointing to Caliban] PROSPERO He is as disproportion'd in his manners As in his shape. Go, sirrah, to my cell; Take with you your companions; as you look To have my pardon, trim it handsomely. CALIBAN Ay, that I will; and I'll be wise hereafter And seek for grace. What a thrice-double ass Was I, to take this drunkard for a god And worship this dull fool! PROSPERO Go to; away! ALONSO Hence, and bestow your luggage where you found it. SEBASTIAN Or stole it, rather. [Exeunt CALIBAN, STEPHANO, and TRINCULO] PROSPERO Sir, I invite your highness and your train To my poor cell, where you shall take your rest For this one night; which, part of it, I'll waste With such discourse as, I not doubt, shall make it Go quick away; the story of my life And the particular accidents gone by Since I came to this isle: and in the morn I'll bring you to your ship and so to Naples, Where I have hope to see the nuptial Of these our dear-beloved solemnized; And thence retire me to my Milan, where Every third thought shall be my grave. ALONSO I long To hear the story of your life, which must Take the ear strangely. PROSPERO I'll deliver all; And promise you calm seas, auspicious gales And sail so expeditious that shall catch Your royal fleet far off. [Aside to ARIEL] My Ariel, chick, That is thy charge: then to the elements Be free, and fare thou well! Please you, draw near. [Exeunt] THE TEMPEST EPILOGUE SPOKEN BY PROSPERO Now my charms are all o'erthrown, And what strength I have's mine own, Which is most faint: now, 'tis true, I must be here confined by you, Or sent to Naples. Let me not, Since I have my dukedom got And pardon'd the deceiver, dwell In this bare island by your spell; But release me from my bands With the help of your good hands: Gentle breath of yours my sails Must fill, or else my project fails, Which was to please. Now I want Spirits to enforce, art to enchant, And my ending is despair, Unless I be relieved by prayer, Which pierces so that it assaults Mercy itself and frees all faults. As you from crimes would pardon'd be, Let your indulgence set me free. TROILUS AND CRESSIDA DRAMATIS PERSONAE PRIAM king of Troy. HECTOR | | TROILUS | | PARIS | his sons. | DEIPHOBUS | | HELENUS | MARGARELON a bastard son of Priam. AENEAS | | Trojan commanders. ANTENOR | CALCHAS a Trojan priest, taking part with the Greeks. PANDARUS uncle to Cressida. AGAMEMNON the Grecian general. MENELAUS his brother. ACHILLES | | AJAX | | ULYSSES | | Grecian princes. NESTOR | | DIOMEDES | | PATROCLUS | THERSITES a deformed and scurrilous Grecian. ALEXANDER servant to Cressida. Servant to Troilus. (Boy:) Servant to Paris. Servant to Diomedes. (Servant:) HELEN wife to Menelaus. ANDROMACHE wife to Hector. CASSANDRA daughter to Priam, a prophetess. CRESSIDA daughter to Calchas. Trojan and Greek Soldiers, and Attendants. SCENE Troy, and the Grecian camp before it. TROILUS AND CRESSIDA PROLOGUE In Troy, there lies the scene. From isles of Greece The princes orgulous, their high blood chafed, Have to the port of Athens sent their ships, Fraught with the ministers and instruments Of cruel war: sixty and nine, that wore Their crownets regal, from the Athenian bay Put forth toward Phrygia; and their vow is made To ransack Troy, within whose strong immures The ravish'd Helen, Menelaus' queen, With wanton Paris sleeps; and that's the quarrel. To Tenedos they come; And the deep-drawing barks do there disgorge Their warlike fraughtage: now on Dardan plains The fresh and yet unbruised Greeks do pitch Their brave pavilions: Priam's six-gated city, Dardan, and Tymbria, Helias, Chetas, Troien, And Antenorides, with massy staples And corresponsive and fulfilling bolts, Sperr up the sons of Troy. Now expectation, tickling skittish spirits, On one and other side, Trojan and Greek, Sets all on hazard: and hither am I come A prologue arm'd, but not in confidence Of author's pen or actor's voice, but suited In like conditions as our argument, To tell you, fair beholders, that our play Leaps o'er the vaunt and firstlings of those broils, Beginning in the middle, starting thence away To what may be digested in a play. Like or find fault; do as your pleasures are: Now good or bad, 'tis but the chance of war. TROILUS AND CRESSIDA ACT I SCENE I Troy. Before Priam's palace. [Enter TROILUS armed, and PANDARUS] TROILUS Call here my varlet; I'll unarm again: Why should I war without the walls of Troy, That find such cruel battle here within? Each Trojan that is master of his heart, Let him to field; Troilus, alas! hath none. PANDARUS Will this gear ne'er be mended? TROILUS The Greeks are strong and skilful to their strength, Fierce to their skill and to their fierceness valiant; But I am weaker than a woman's tear, Tamer than sleep, fonder than ignorance, Less valiant than the virgin in the night And skilless as unpractised infancy. PANDARUS Well, I have told you enough of this: for my part, I'll not meddle nor make no further. He that will have a cake out of the wheat must needs tarry the grinding. TROILUS Have I not tarried? PANDARUS Ay, the grinding; but you must tarry the bolting. TROILUS Have I not tarried? PANDARUS Ay, the bolting, but you must tarry the leavening. TROILUS Still have I tarried. PANDARUS Ay, to the leavening; but here's yet in the word 'hereafter' the kneading, the making of the cake, the heating of the oven and the baking; nay, you must stay the cooling too, or you may chance to burn your lips. TROILUS Patience herself, what goddess e'er she be, Doth lesser blench at sufferance than I do. At Priam's royal table do I sit; And when fair Cressid comes into my thoughts,-- So, traitor! 'When she comes!' When is she thence? PANDARUS Well, she looked yesternight fairer than ever I saw her look, or any woman else. TROILUS I was about to tell thee:--when my heart, As wedged with a sigh, would rive in twain, Lest Hector or my father should perceive me, I have, as when the sun doth light a storm, Buried this sigh in wrinkle of a smile: But sorrow, that is couch'd in seeming gladness, Is like that mirth fate turns to sudden sadness. PANDARUS An her hair were not somewhat darker than Helen's-- well, go to--there were no more comparison between the women: but, for my part, she is my kinswoman; I would not, as they term it, praise her: but I would somebody had heard her talk yesterday, as I did. I will not dispraise your sister Cassandra's wit, but-- TROILUS O Pandarus! I tell thee, Pandarus,-- When I do tell thee, there my hopes lie drown'd, Reply not in how many fathoms deep They lie indrench'd. I tell thee I am mad In Cressid's love: thou answer'st 'she is fair;' Pour'st in the open ulcer of my heart Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gait, her voice, Handlest in thy discourse, O, that her hand, In whose comparison all whites are ink, Writing their own reproach, to whose soft seizure The cygnet's down is harsh and spirit of sense Hard as the palm of ploughman: this thou tell'st me, As true thou tell'st me, when I say I love her; But, saying thus, instead of oil and balm, Thou lay'st in every gash that love hath given me The knife that made it. PANDARUS I speak no more than truth. TROILUS Thou dost not speak so much. PANDARUS Faith, I'll not meddle in't. Let her be as she is: if she be fair, 'tis the better for her; an she be not, she has the mends in her own hands. TROILUS Good Pandarus, how now, Pandarus! PANDARUS I have had my labour for my travail; ill-thought on of her and ill-thought on of you; gone between and between, but small thanks for my labour. TROILUS What, art thou angry, Pandarus? what, with me? PANDARUS Because she's kin to me, therefore she's not so fair as Helen: an she were not kin to me, she would be as fair on Friday as Helen is on Sunday. But what care I? I care not an she were a black-a-moor; 'tis all one to me. TROILUS Say I she is not fair? PANDARUS I do not care whether you do or no. She's a fool to stay behind her father; let her to the Greeks; and so I'll tell her the next time I see her: for my part, I'll meddle nor make no more i' the matter. TROILUS Pandarus,-- PANDARUS Not I. TROILUS Sweet Pandarus,-- PANDARUS Pray you, speak no more to me: I will leave all as I found it, and there an end. [Exit PANDARUS. An alarum] TROILUS Peace, you ungracious clamours! peace, rude sounds! Fools on both sides! Helen must needs be fair, When with your blood you daily paint her thus. I cannot fight upon this argument; It is too starved a subject for my sword. But Pandarus,--O gods, how do you plague me! I cannot come to Cressid but by Pandar; And he's as tetchy to be woo'd to woo. As she is stubborn-chaste against all suit. Tell me, Apollo, for thy Daphne's love, What Cressid is, what Pandar, and what we? Her bed is India; there she lies, a pearl: Between our Ilium and where she resides, Let it be call'd the wild and wandering flood, Ourself the merchant, and this sailing Pandar Our doubtful hope, our convoy and our bark. [Alarum. Enter AENEAS] AENEAS How now, Prince Troilus! wherefore not afield? TROILUS Because not there: this woman's answer sorts, For womanish it is to be from thence. What news, AEneas, from the field to-day? AENEAS That Paris is returned home and hurt. TROILUS By whom, AEneas? AENEAS Troilus, by Menelaus. TROILUS Let Paris bleed; 'tis but a scar to scorn; Paris is gored with Menelaus' horn. [Alarum] AENEAS Hark, what good sport is out of town to-day! TROILUS Better at home, if 'would I might' were 'may.' But to the sport abroad: are you bound thither? AENEAS In all swift haste. TROILUS Come, go we then together. [Exeunt] TROILUS AND CRESSIDA ACT I SCENE II The Same. A street. [Enter CRESSIDA and ALEXANDER] CRESSIDA Who were those went by? ALEXANDER Queen Hecuba and Helen. CRESSIDA And whither go they? ALEXANDER Up to the eastern tower, Whose height commands as subject all the vale, To see the battle. Hector, whose patience Is, as a virtue, fix'd, to-day was moved: He chid Andromache and struck his armourer, And, like as there were husbandry in war, Before the sun rose he was harness'd light, And to the field goes he; where every flower Did, as a prophet, weep what it foresaw In Hector's wrath. CRESSIDA What was his cause of anger? ALEXANDER The noise goes, this: there is among the Greeks A lord of Trojan blood, nephew to Hector; They call him Ajax. CRESSIDA Good; and what of him? ALEXANDER They say he is a very man per se, And stands alone. CRESSIDA So do all men, unless they are drunk, sick, or have no legs. ALEXANDER This man, lady, hath robbed many beasts of their particular additions; he is as valiant as the lion, churlish as the bear, slow as the elephant: a man into whom nature hath so crowded humours that his valour is crushed into folly, his folly sauced with discretion: there is no man hath a virtue that he hath not a glimpse of, nor any man an attaint but he carries some stain of it: he is melancholy without cause, and merry against the hair: he hath the joints of every thing, but everything so out of joint that he is a gouty Briareus, many hands and no use, or purblind Argus, all eyes and no sight. CRESSIDA But how should this man, that makes me smile, make Hector angry? ALEXANDER They say he yesterday coped Hector in the battle and struck him down, the disdain and shame whereof hath ever since kept Hector fasting and waking. CRESSIDA Who comes here? ALEXANDER Madam, your uncle Pandarus. [Enter PANDARUS] CRESSIDA Hector's a gallant man. ALEXANDER As may be in the world, lady. PANDARUS What's that? what's that? CRESSIDA Good morrow, uncle Pandarus. PANDARUS Good morrow, cousin Cressid: what do you talk of? Good morrow, Alexander. How do you, cousin? When were you at Ilium? CRESSIDA This morning, uncle. PANDARUS What were you talking of when I came? Was Hector armed and gone ere ye came to Ilium? Helen was not up, was she? CRESSIDA Hector was gone, but Helen was not up. PANDARUS Even so: Hector was stirring early. CRESSIDA That were we talking of, and of his anger. PANDARUS Was he angry? CRESSIDA So he says here. PANDARUS True, he was so: I know the cause too: he'll lay about him to-day, I can tell them that: and there's Troilus will not come far behind him: let them take heed of Troilus, I can tell them that too. CRESSIDA What, is he angry too? PANDARUS Who, Troilus? Troilus is the better man of the two. CRESSIDA O Jupiter! there's no comparison. PANDARUS What, not between Troilus and Hector? Do you know a man if you see him? CRESSIDA Ay, if I ever saw him before and knew him. PANDARUS Well, I say Troilus is Troilus. CRESSIDA Then you say as I say; for, I am sure, he is not Hector. PANDARUS No, nor Hector is not Troilus in some degrees. CRESSIDA 'Tis just to each of them; he is himself. PANDARUS Himself! Alas, poor Troilus! I would he were. CRESSIDA So he is. PANDARUS Condition, I had gone barefoot to India. CRESSIDA He is not Hector. PANDARUS Himself! no, he's not himself: would a' were himself! Well, the gods are above; time must friend or end: well, Troilus, well: I would my heart were in her body. No, Hector is not a better man than Troilus. CRESSIDA Excuse me. PANDARUS He is elder. CRESSIDA Pardon me, pardon me. PANDARUS Th' other's not come to't; you shall tell me another tale, when th' other's come to't. Hector shall not have his wit this year. CRESSIDA He shall not need it, if he have his own. PANDARUS Nor his qualities. CRESSIDA No matter. PANDARUS Nor his beauty. CRESSIDA 'Twould not become him; his own's better. PANDARUS You have no judgment, niece: Helen herself swore th' other day, that Troilus, for a brown favour--for so 'tis, I must confess,-- not brown neither,-- CRESSIDA No, but brown. PANDARUS 'Faith, to say truth, brown and not brown. CRESSIDA To say the truth, true and not true. PANDARUS She praised his complexion above Paris. CRESSIDA Why, Paris hath colour enough. PANDARUS So he has. CRESSIDA Then Troilus should have too much: if she praised him above, his complexion is higher than his; he having colour enough, and the other higher, is too flaming a praise for a good complexion. I had as lief Helen's golden tongue had commended Troilus for a copper nose. PANDARUS I swear to you. I think Helen loves him better than Paris. CRESSIDA Then she's a merry Greek indeed. PANDARUS Nay, I am sure she does. She came to him th' other day into the compassed window,--and, you know, he has not past three or four hairs on his chin,-- CRESSIDA Indeed, a tapster's arithmetic may soon bring his particulars therein to a total. PANDARUS Why, he is very young: and yet will he, within three pound, lift as much as his brother Hector. CRESSIDA Is he so young a man and so old a lifter? PANDARUS But to prove to you that Helen loves him: she came and puts me her white hand to his cloven chin-- CRESSIDA Juno have mercy! how came it cloven? PANDARUS Why, you know 'tis dimpled: I think his smiling becomes him better than any man in all Phrygia. CRESSIDA O, he smiles valiantly. PANDARUS Does he not? CRESSIDA O yes, an 'twere a cloud in autumn. PANDARUS Why, go to, then: but to prove to you that Helen loves Troilus,-- CRESSIDA Troilus will stand to the proof, if you'll prove it so. PANDARUS Troilus! why, he esteems her no more than I esteem an addle egg. CRESSIDA If you love an addle egg as well as you love an idle head, you would eat chickens i' the shell. PANDARUS I cannot choose but laugh, to think how she tickled his chin: indeed, she has a marvellous white hand, I must needs confess,-- CRESSIDA Without the rack. PANDARUS And she takes upon her to spy a white hair on his chin. CRESSIDA Alas, poor chin! many a wart is richer. PANDARUS But there was such laughing! Queen Hecuba laughed that her eyes ran o'er. CRESSIDA With mill-stones. PANDARUS And Cassandra laughed. CRESSIDA But there was more temperate fire under the pot of her eyes: did her eyes run o'er too? PANDARUS And Hector laughed. CRESSIDA At what was all this laughing? PANDARUS Marry, at the white hair that Helen spied on Troilus' chin. CRESSIDA An't had been a green hair, I should have laughed too. PANDARUS They laughed not so much at the hair as at his pretty answer. CRESSIDA What was his answer? PANDARUS Quoth she, 'Here's but two and fifty hairs on your chin, and one of them is white. CRESSIDA This is her question. PANDARUS That's true; make no question of that. 'Two and fifty hairs' quoth he, 'and one white: that white hair is my father, and all the rest are his sons.' 'Jupiter!' quoth she, 'which of these hairs is Paris, my husband? 'The forked one,' quoth he, 'pluck't out, and give it him.' But there was such laughing! and Helen so blushed, an Paris so chafed, and all the rest so laughed, that it passed. CRESSIDA So let it now; for it has been while going by. PANDARUS Well, cousin. I told you a thing yesterday; think on't. CRESSIDA So I do. PANDARUS I'll be sworn 'tis true; he will weep you, an 'twere a man born in April. CRESSIDA And I'll spring up in his tears, an 'twere a nettle against May. [A retreat sounded] PANDARUS Hark! they are coming from the field: shall we stand up here, and see them as they pass toward Ilium? good niece, do, sweet niece Cressida. CRESSIDA At your pleasure. PANDARUS Here, here, here's an excellent place; here we may see most bravely: I'll tell you them all by their names as they pass by; but mark Troilus above the rest. CRESSIDA Speak not so loud. [AENEAS passes] PANDARUS That's AEneas: is not that a brave man? he's one of the flowers of Troy, I can tell you: but mark Troilus; you shall see anon. [ANTENOR passes] CRESSIDA Who's that? PANDARUS That's Antenor: he has a shrewd wit, I can tell you; and he's a man good enough, he's one o' the soundest judgments in whosoever, and a proper man of person. When comes Troilus? I'll show you Troilus anon: if he see me, you shall see him nod at me. CRESSIDA Will he give you the nod? PANDARUS You shall see. CRESSIDA If he do, the rich shall have more. [HECTOR passes] PANDARUS That's Hector, that, that, look you, that; there's a fellow! Go thy way, Hector! There's a brave man, niece. O brave Hector! Look how he looks! there's a countenance! is't not a brave man? CRESSIDA O, a brave man! PANDARUS Is a' not? it does a man's heart good. Look you what hacks are on his helmet! look you yonder, do you see? look you there: there's no jesting; there's laying on, take't off who will, as they say: there be hacks! CRESSIDA Be those with swords? PANDARUS Swords! any thing, he cares not; an the devil come to him, it's all one: by God's lid, it does one's heart good. Yonder comes Paris, yonder comes Paris. [PARIS passes] Look ye yonder, niece; is't not a gallant man too, is't not? Why, this is brave now. Who said he came hurt home to-day? he's not hurt: why, this will do Helen's heart good now, ha! Would I could see Troilus now! You shall see Troilus anon. [HELENUS passes] CRESSIDA Who's that? PANDARUS That's Helenus. I marvel where Troilus is. That's Helenus. I think he went not forth to-day. That's Helenus. CRESSIDA Can Helenus fight, uncle? PANDARUS Helenus? no. Yes, he'll fight indifferent well. I marvel where Troilus is. Hark! do you not hear the people cry 'Troilus'? Helenus is a priest. CRESSIDA What sneaking fellow comes yonder? [TROILUS passes] PANDARUS Where? yonder? that's Deiphobus. 'Tis Troilus! there's a man, niece! Hem! Brave Troilus! the prince of chivalry! CRESSIDA Peace, for shame, peace! PANDARUS Mark him; note him. O brave Troilus! Look well upon him, niece: look you how his sword is bloodied, and his helm more hacked than Hector's, and how he looks, and how he goes! O admirable youth! he ne'er saw three and twenty. Go thy way, Troilus, go thy way! Had I a sister were a grace, or a daughter a goddess, he should take his choice. O admirable man! Paris? Paris is dirt to him; and, I warrant, Helen, to change, would give an eye to boot. CRESSIDA Here come more. [Forces pass] PANDARUS Asses, fools, dolts! chaff and bran, chaff and bran! porridge after meat! I could live and die i' the eyes of Troilus. Ne'er look, ne'er look: the eagles are gone: crows and daws, crows and daws! I had rather be such a man as Troilus than Agamemnon and all Greece. CRESSIDA There is among the Greeks Achilles, a better man than Troilus. PANDARUS Achilles! a drayman, a porter, a very camel. CRESSIDA Well, well. PANDARUS 'Well, well!' why, have you any discretion? have you any eyes? Do you know what a man is? Is not birth, beauty, good shape, discourse, manhood, learning, gentleness, virtue, youth, liberality, and such like, the spice and salt that season a man? CRESSIDA Ay, a minced man: and then to be baked with no date in the pie, for then the man's date's out. PANDARUS You are such a woman! one knows not at what ward you lie. CRESSIDA Upon my back, to defend my belly; upon my wit, to defend my wiles; upon my secrecy, to defend mine honesty; my mask, to defend my beauty; and you, to defend all these: and at all these wards I lie, at a thousand watches. PANDARUS Say one of your watches. CRESSIDA Nay, I'll watch you for that; and that's one of the chiefest of them too: if I cannot ward what I would not have hit, I can watch you for telling how I took the blow; unless it swell past hiding, and then it's past watching. PANDARUS You are such another! [Enter Troilus's Boy] Boy Sir, my lord would instantly speak with you. PANDARUS Where? Boy At your own house; there he unarms him. PANDARUS Good boy, tell him I come. [Exit boy] I doubt he be hurt. Fare ye well, good niece. CRESSIDA Adieu, uncle. PANDARUS I'll be with you, niece, by and by. CRESSIDA To bring, uncle? PANDARUS Ay, a token from Troilus. CRESSIDA By the same token, you are a bawd. [Exit PANDARUS] Words, vows, gifts, tears, and love's full sacrifice, He offers in another's enterprise; But more in Troilus thousand fold I see Than in the glass of Pandar's praise may be; Yet hold I off. Women are angels, wooing: Things won are done; joy's soul lies in the doing. That she beloved knows nought that knows not this: Men prize the thing ungain'd more than it is: That she was never yet that ever knew Love got so sweet as when desire did sue. Therefore this maxim out of love I teach: Achievement is command; ungain'd, beseech: Then though my heart's content firm love doth bear, Nothing of that shall from mine eyes appear. [Exeunt] TROILUS AND CRESSIDA ACT I SCENE III The Grecian camp. Before Agamemnon's tent. [Sennet. Enter AGAMEMNON, NESTOR, ULYSSES, MENELAUS, and others] AGAMEMNON Princes, What grief hath set the jaundice on your cheeks? The ample proposition that hope makes In all designs begun on earth below Fails in the promised largeness: cheques and disasters Grow in the veins of actions highest rear'd, As knots, by the conflux of meeting sap, Infect the sound pine and divert his grain Tortive and errant from his course of growth. Nor, princes, is it matter new to us That we come short of our suppose so far That after seven years' siege yet Troy walls stand; Sith every action that hath gone before, Whereof we have record, trial did draw Bias and thwart, not answering the aim, And that unbodied figure of the thought That gave't surmised shape. Why then, you princes, Do you with cheeks abash'd behold our works, And call them shames? which are indeed nought else But the protractive trials of great Jove To find persistive constancy in men: The fineness of which metal is not found In fortune's love; for then the bold and coward, The wise and fool, the artist and unread, The hard and soft seem all affined and kin: But, in the wind and tempest of her frown, Distinction, with a broad and powerful fan, Puffing at all, winnows the light away; And what hath mass or matter, by itself Lies rich in virtue and unmingled. NESTOR With due observance of thy godlike seat, Great Agamemnon, Nestor shall apply Thy latest words. In the reproof of chance Lies the true proof of men: the sea being smooth, How many shallow bauble boats dare sail Upon her patient breast, making their way With those of nobler bulk! But let the ruffian Boreas once enrage The gentle Thetis, and anon behold The strong-ribb'd bark through liquid mountains cut, Bounding between the two moist elements, Like Perseus' horse: where's then the saucy boat Whose weak untimber'd sides but even now Co-rivall'd greatness? Either to harbour fled, Or made a toast for Neptune. Even so Doth valour's show and valour's worth divide In storms of fortune; for in her ray and brightness The herd hath more annoyance by the breeze Than by the tiger; but when the splitting wind Makes flexible the knees of knotted oaks, And flies fled under shade, why, then the thing of courage As roused with rage with rage doth sympathize, And with an accent tuned in selfsame key Retorts to chiding fortune. ULYSSES Agamemnon, Thou great commander, nerve and bone of Greece, Heart of our numbers, soul and only spirit. In whom the tempers and the minds of all Should be shut up, hear what Ulysses speaks. Besides the applause and approbation To which, [To AGAMEMNON] most mighty for thy place and sway, [To NESTOR] And thou most reverend for thy stretch'd-out life I give to both your speeches, which were such As Agamemnon and the hand of Greece Should hold up high in brass, and such again As venerable Nestor, hatch'd in silver, Should with a bond of air, strong as the axle-tree On which heaven rides, knit all the Greekish ears To his experienced tongue, yet let it please both, Thou great, and wise, to hear Ulysses speak. AGAMEMNON Speak, prince of Ithaca; and be't of less expect That matter needless, of importless burden, Divide thy lips, than we are confident, When rank Thersites opes his mastic jaws, We shall hear music, wit and oracle. ULYSSES Troy, yet upon his basis, had been down, And the great Hector's sword had lack'd a master, But for these instances. The specialty of rule hath been neglected: And, look, how many Grecian tents do stand Hollow upon this plain, so many hollow factions. When that the general is not like the hive To whom the foragers shall all repair, What honey is expected? Degree being vizarded, The unworthiest shows as fairly in the mask. The heavens themselves, the planets and this centre Observe degree, priority and place, Insisture, course, proportion, season, form, Office and custom, in all line of order; And therefore is the glorious planet Sol In noble eminence enthroned and sphered Amidst the other; whose medicinable eye Corrects the ill aspects of planets evil, And posts, like the commandment of a king, Sans cheque to good and bad: but when the planets In evil mixture to disorder wander, What plagues and what portents! what mutiny! What raging of the sea! shaking of earth! Commotion in the winds! frights, changes, horrors, Divert and crack, rend and deracinate The unity and married calm of states Quite from their fixure! O, when degree is shaked, Which is the ladder to all high designs, Then enterprise is sick! How could communities, Degrees in schools and brotherhoods in cities, Peaceful commerce from dividable shores, The primogenitive and due of birth, Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels, But by degree, stand in authentic place? Take but degree away, untune that string, And, hark, what discord follows! each thing meets In mere oppugnancy: the bounded waters Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores And make a sop of all this solid globe: Strength should be lord of imbecility, And the rude son should strike his father dead: Force should be right; or rather, right and wrong, Between whose endless jar justice resides, Should lose their names, and so should justice too. Then every thing includes itself in power, Power into will, will into appetite; And appetite, an universal wolf, So doubly seconded with will and power, Must make perforce an universal prey, And last eat up himself. Great Agamemnon, This chaos, when degree is suffocate, Follows the choking. And this neglection of degree it is That by a pace goes backward, with a purpose It hath to climb. The general's disdain'd By him one step below, he by the next, That next by him beneath; so every step, Exampled by the first pace that is sick Of his superior, grows to an envious fever Of pale and bloodless emulation: And 'tis this fever that keeps Troy on foot, Not her own sinews. To end a tale of length, Troy in our weakness stands, not in her strength. NESTOR Most wisely hath Ulysses here discover'd The fever whereof all our power is sick. AGAMEMNON The nature of the sickness found, Ulysses, What is the remedy? ULYSSES The great Achilles, whom opinion crowns The sinew and the forehand of our host, Having his ear full of his airy fame, Grows dainty of his worth, and in his tent Lies mocking our designs: with him Patroclus Upon a lazy bed the livelong day Breaks scurril jests; And with ridiculous and awkward action, Which, slanderer, he imitation calls, He pageants us. Sometime, great Agamemnon, Thy topless deputation he puts on, And, like a strutting player, whose conceit Lies in his hamstring, and doth think it rich To hear the wooden dialogue and sound 'Twixt his stretch'd footing and the scaffoldage,-- Such to-be-pitied and o'er-wrested seeming He acts thy greatness in: and when he speaks, 'Tis like a chime a-mending; with terms unsquared, Which, from the tongue of roaring Typhon dropp'd Would seem hyperboles. At this fusty stuff The large Achilles, on his press'd bed lolling, From his deep chest laughs out a loud applause; Cries 'Excellent! 'tis Agamemnon just. Now play me Nestor; hem, and stroke thy beard, As he being drest to some oration.' That's done, as near as the extremest ends Of parallels, as like as Vulcan and his wife: Yet god Achilles still cries 'Excellent! 'Tis Nestor right. Now play him me, Patroclus, Arming to answer in a night alarm.' And then, forsooth, the faint defects of age Must be the scene of mirth; to cough and spit, And, with a palsy-fumbling on his gorget, Shake in and out the rivet: and at this sport Sir Valour dies; cries 'O, enough, Patroclus; Or give me ribs of steel! I shall split all In pleasure of my spleen.' And in this fashion, All our abilities, gifts, natures, shapes, Severals and generals of grace exact, Achievements, plots, orders, preventions, Excitements to the field, or speech for truce, Success or loss, what is or is not, serves As stuff for these two to make paradoxes. NESTOR And in the imitation of these twain-- Who, as Ulysses says, opinion crowns With an imperial voice--many are infect. Ajax is grown self-will'd, and bears his head In such a rein, in full as proud a place As broad Achilles; keeps his tent like him; Makes factious feasts; rails on our state of war, Bold as an oracle, and sets Thersites, A slave whose gall coins slanders like a mint, To match us in comparisons with dirt, To weaken and discredit our exposure, How rank soever rounded in with danger. ULYSSES They tax our policy, and call it cowardice, Count wisdom as no member of the war, Forestall prescience, and esteem no act But that of hand: the still and mental parts, That do contrive how many hands shall strike, When fitness calls them on, and know by measure Of their observant toil the enemies' weight,-- Why, this hath not a finger's dignity: They call this bed-work, mappery, closet-war; So that the ram that batters down the wall, For the great swing and rudeness of his poise, They place before his hand that made the engine, Or those that with the fineness of their souls By reason guide his execution. NESTOR Let this be granted, and Achilles' horse Makes many Thetis' sons. [A tucket] AGAMEMNON What trumpet? look, Menelaus. MENELAUS From Troy. [Enter AENEAS] AGAMEMNON What would you 'fore our tent? AENEAS Is this great Agamemnon's tent, I pray you? AGAMEMNON Even this. AENEAS May one, that is a herald and a prince, Do a fair message to his kingly ears? AGAMEMNON With surety stronger than Achilles' arm 'Fore all the Greekish heads, which with one voice Call Agamemnon head and general. AENEAS Fair leave and large security. How may A stranger to those most imperial looks Know them from eyes of other mortals? AGAMEMNON How! AENEAS Ay; I ask, that I might waken reverence, And bid the cheek be ready with a blush Modest as morning when she coldly eyes The youthful Phoebus: Which is that god in office, guiding men? Which is the high and mighty Agamemnon? AGAMEMNON This Trojan scorns us; or the men of Troy Are ceremonious courtiers. AENEAS Courtiers as free, as debonair, unarm'd, As bending angels; that's their fame in peace: But when they would seem soldiers, they have galls, Good arms, strong joints, true swords; and, Jove's accord, Nothing so full of heart. But peace, AEneas, Peace, Trojan; lay thy finger on thy lips! The worthiness of praise distains his worth, If that the praised himself bring the praise forth: But what the repining enemy commends, That breath fame blows; that praise, sole sure, transcends. AGAMEMNON Sir, you of Troy, call you yourself AEneas? AENEAS Ay, Greek, that is my name. AGAMEMNON What's your affair I pray you? AENEAS Sir, pardon; 'tis for Agamemnon's ears. AGAMEMNON He hears naught privately that comes from Troy. AENEAS Nor I from Troy come not to whisper him: I bring a trumpet to awake his ear, To set his sense on the attentive bent, And then to speak. AGAMEMNON Speak frankly as the wind; It is not Agamemnon's sleeping hour: That thou shalt know. Trojan, he is awake, He tells thee so himself. AENEAS Trumpet, blow loud, Send thy brass voice through all these lazy tents; And every Greek of mettle, let him know, What Troy means fairly shall be spoke aloud. [Trumpet sounds] We have, great Agamemnon, here in Troy A prince call'd Hector,--Priam is his father,-- Who in this dull and long-continued truce Is rusty grown: he bade me take a trumpet, And to this purpose speak. Kings, princes, lords! If there be one among the fair'st of Greece That holds his honour higher than his ease, That seeks his praise more than he fears his peril, That knows his valour, and knows not his fear, That loves his mistress more than in confession, With truant vows to her own lips he loves, And dare avow her beauty and her worth In other arms than hers,--to him this challenge. Hector, in view of Trojans and of Greeks, Shall make it good, or do his best to do it, He hath a lady, wiser, fairer, truer, Than ever Greek did compass in his arms, And will to-morrow with his trumpet call Midway between your tents and walls of Troy, To rouse a Grecian that is true in love: If any come, Hector shall honour him; If none, he'll say in Troy when he retires, The Grecian dames are sunburnt and not worth The splinter of a lance. Even so much. AGAMEMNON This shall be told our lovers, Lord AEneas; If none of them have soul in such a kind, We left them all at home: but we are soldiers; And may that soldier a mere recreant prove, That means not, hath not, or is not in love! If then one is, or hath, or means to be, That one meets Hector; if none else, I am he. NESTOR Tell him of Nestor, one that was a man When Hector's grandsire suck'd: he is old now; But if there be not in our Grecian host One noble man that hath one spark of fire, To answer for his love, tell him from me I'll hide my silver beard in a gold beaver And in my vantbrace put this wither'd brawn, And meeting him will tell him that my lady Was fairer than his grandam and as chaste As may be in the world: his youth in flood, I'll prove this truth with my three drops of blood. AENEAS Now heavens forbid such scarcity of youth! ULYSSES Amen. AGAMEMNON Fair Lord AEneas, let me touch your hand; To our pavilion shall I lead you, sir. Achilles shall have word of this intent; So shall each lord of Greece, from tent to tent: Yourself shall feast with us before you go And find the welcome of a noble foe. [Exeunt all but ULYSSES and NESTOR] ULYSSES Nestor! NESTOR What says Ulysses? ULYSSES I have a young conception in my brain; Be you my time to bring it to some shape. NESTOR What is't? ULYSSES This 'tis: Blunt wedges rive hard knots: the seeded pride That hath to this maturity blown up In rank Achilles must or now be cropp'd, Or, shedding, breed a nursery of like evil, To overbulk us all. NESTOR Well, and how? ULYSSES This challenge that the gallant Hector sends, However it is spread in general name, Relates in purpose only to Achilles. NESTOR The purpose is perspicuous even as substance, Whose grossness little characters sum up: And, in the publication, make no strain, But that Achilles, were his brain as barren As banks of Libya,--though, Apollo knows, 'Tis dry enough,--will, with great speed of judgment, Ay, with celerity, find Hector's purpose Pointing on him. ULYSSES And wake him to the answer, think you? NESTOR Yes, 'tis most meet: whom may you else oppose, That can from Hector bring his honour off, If not Achilles? Though't be a sportful combat, Yet in the trial much opinion dwells; For here the Trojans taste our dear'st repute With their finest palate: and trust to me, Ulysses, Our imputation shall be oddly poised In this wild action; for the success, Although particular, shall give a scantling Of good or bad unto the general; And in such indexes, although small pricks To their subsequent volumes, there is seen The baby figure of the giant mass Of things to come at large. It is supposed He that meets Hector issues from our choice And choice, being mutual act of all our souls, Makes merit her election, and doth boil, As 'twere from us all, a man distill'd Out of our virtues; who miscarrying, What heart receives from hence the conquering part, To steel a strong opinion to themselves? Which entertain'd, limbs are his instruments, In no less working than are swords and bows Directive by the limbs. ULYSSES Give pardon to my speech: Therefore 'tis meet Achilles meet not Hector. Let us, like merchants, show our foulest wares, And think, perchance, they'll sell; if not, The lustre of the better yet to show, Shall show the better. Do not consent That ever Hector and Achilles meet; For both our honour and our shame in this Are dogg'd with two strange followers. NESTOR I see them not with my old eyes: what are they? ULYSSES What glory our Achilles shares from Hector, Were he not proud, we all should share with him: But he already is too insolent; And we were better parch in Afric sun Than in the pride and salt scorn of his eyes, Should he 'scape Hector fair: if he were foil'd, Why then, we did our main opinion crush In taint of our best man. No, make a lottery; And, by device, let blockish Ajax draw The sort to fight with Hector: among ourselves Give him allowance for the better man; For that will physic the great Myrmidon Who broils in loud applause, and make him fall His crest that prouder than blue Iris bends. If the dull brainless Ajax come safe off, We'll dress him up in voices: if he fail, Yet go we under our opinion still That we have better men. But, hit or miss, Our project's life this shape of sense assumes: Ajax employ'd plucks down Achilles' plumes. NESTOR Ulysses, Now I begin to relish thy advice; And I will give a taste of it forthwith To Agamemnon: go we to him straight. Two curs shall tame each other: pride alone Must tarre the mastiffs on, as 'twere their bone. [Exeunt] TROILUS AND CRESSIDA ACT II SCENE I A part of the Grecian camp. [Enter AJAX and THERSITES] AJAX Thersites! THERSITES Agamemnon, how if he had boils? full, all over, generally? AJAX Thersites! THERSITES And those boils did run? say so: did not the general run then? were not that a botchy core? AJAX Dog! THERSITES Then would come some matter from him; I see none now. AJAX Thou bitch-wolf's son, canst thou not hear? [Beating him] Feel, then. THERSITES The plague of Greece upon thee, thou mongrel beef-witted lord! AJAX Speak then, thou vinewedst leaven, speak: I will beat thee into handsomeness. THERSITES I shall sooner rail thee into wit and holiness: but, I think, thy horse will sooner con an oration than thou learn a prayer without book. Thou canst strike, canst thou? a red murrain o' thy jade's tricks! AJAX Toadstool, learn me the proclamation. THERSITES Dost thou think I have no sense, thou strikest me thus? AJAX The proclamation! THERSITES Thou art proclaimed a fool, I think. AJAX Do not, porpentine, do not: my fingers itch. THERSITES I would thou didst itch from head to foot and I had the scratching of thee; I would make thee the loathsomest scab in Greece. When thou art forth in the incursions, thou strikest as slow as another. AJAX I say, the proclamation! THERSITES Thou grumblest and railest every hour on Achilles, and thou art as full of envy at his greatness as Cerberus is at Proserpine's beauty, ay, that thou barkest at him. AJAX Mistress Thersites! THERSITES Thou shouldest strike him. AJAX Cobloaf! THERSITES He would pun thee into shivers with his fist, as a sailor breaks a biscuit. AJAX [Beating him] You whoreson cur! THERSITES Do, do. AJAX Thou stool for a witch! THERSITES Ay, do, do; thou sodden-witted lord! thou hast no more brain than I have in mine elbows; an assinego may tutor thee: thou scurvy-valiant ass! thou art here but to thrash Trojans; and thou art bought and sold among those of any wit, like a barbarian slave. If thou use to beat me, I will begin at thy heel, and tell what thou art by inches, thou thing of no bowels, thou! AJAX You dog! THERSITES You scurvy lord! AJAX [Beating him] You cur! THERSITES Mars his idiot! do, rudeness; do, camel; do, do. [Enter ACHILLES and PATROCLUS] ACHILLES Why, how now, Ajax! wherefore do you thus? How now, Thersites! what's the matter, man? THERSITES You see him there, do you? ACHILLES Ay; what's the matter? THERSITES Nay, look upon him. ACHILLES So I do: what's the matter? THERSITES Nay, but regard him well. ACHILLES 'Well!' why, I do so. THERSITES But yet you look not well upon him; for whosoever you take him to be, he is Ajax. ACHILLES I know that, fool. THERSITES Ay, but that fool knows not himself. AJAX Therefore I beat thee. THERSITES Lo, lo, lo, lo, what modicums of wit he utters! his evasions have ears thus long. I have bobbed his brain more than he has beat my bones: I will buy nine sparrows for a penny, and his pia mater is not worth the nineth part of a sparrow. This lord, Achilles, Ajax, who wears his wit in his belly and his guts in his head, I'll tell you what I say of him. ACHILLES What? THERSITES I say, this Ajax-- [Ajax offers to beat him] ACHILLES Nay, good Ajax. THERSITES Has not so much wit-- ACHILLES Nay, I must hold you. THERSITES As will stop the eye of Helen's needle, for whom he comes to fight. ACHILLES Peace, fool! THERSITES I would have peace and quietness, but the fool will not: he there: that he: look you there. AJAX O thou damned cur! I shall-- ACHILLES Will you set your wit to a fool's? THERSITES No, I warrant you; for a fools will shame it. PATROCLUS Good words, Thersites. ACHILLES What's the quarrel? AJAX I bade the vile owl go learn me the tenor of the proclamation, and he rails upon me. THERSITES I serve thee not. AJAX Well, go to, go to. THERSITES I serve here voluntarily. ACHILLES Your last service was sufferance, 'twas not voluntary: no man is beaten voluntary: Ajax was here the voluntary, and you as under an impress. THERSITES E'en so; a great deal of your wit, too, lies in your sinews, or else there be liars. Hector have a great catch, if he knock out either of your brains: a' were as good crack a fusty nut with no kernel. ACHILLES What, with me too, Thersites? THERSITES There's Ulysses and old Nestor, whose wit was mouldy ere your grandsires had nails on their toes, yoke you like draught-oxen and make you plough up the wars. ACHILLES What, what? THERSITES Yes, good sooth: to, Achilles! to, Ajax! to! AJAX I shall cut out your tongue. THERSITES 'Tis no matter! I shall speak as much as thou afterwards. PATROCLUS No more words, Thersites; peace! THERSITES I will hold my peace when Achilles' brach bids me, shall I? ACHILLES There's for you, Patroclus. THERSITES I will see you hanged, like clotpoles, ere I come any more to your tents: I will keep where there is wit stirring and leave the faction of fools. [Exit] PATROCLUS A good riddance. ACHILLES Marry, this, sir, is proclaim'd through all our host: That Hector, by the fifth hour of the sun, Will with a trumpet 'twixt our tents and Troy To-morrow morning call some knight to arms That hath a stomach; and such a one that dare Maintain--I know not what: 'tis trash. Farewell. AJAX Farewell. Who shall answer him? ACHILLES I know not: 'tis put to lottery; otherwise He knew his man. AJAX O, meaning you. I will go learn more of it. [Exeunt] TROILUS AND CRESSIDA ACT II SCENE II Troy. A room in Priam's palace. [Enter PRIAM, HECTOR, TROILUS, PARIS, and HELENUS] PRIAM After so many hours, lives, speeches spent, Thus once again says Nestor from the Greeks: 'Deliver Helen, and all damage else-- As honour, loss of time, travail, expense, Wounds, friends, and what else dear that is consumed In hot digestion of this cormorant war-- Shall be struck off.' Hector, what say you to't? HECTOR Though no man lesser fears the Greeks than I As far as toucheth my particular, Yet, dread Priam, There is no lady of more softer bowels, More spongy to suck in the sense of fear, More ready to cry out 'Who knows what follows?' Than Hector is: the wound of peace is surety, Surety secure; but modest doubt is call'd The beacon of the wise, the tent that searches To the bottom of the worst. Let Helen go: Since the first sword was drawn about this question, Every tithe soul, 'mongst many thousand dismes, Hath been as dear as Helen; I mean, of ours: If we have lost so many tenths of ours, To guard a thing not ours nor worth to us, Had it our name, the value of one ten, What merit's in that reason which denies The yielding of her up? TROILUS Fie, fie, my brother! Weigh you the worth and honour of a king So great as our dread father in a scale Of common ounces? will you with counters sum The past proportion of his infinite? And buckle in a waist most fathomless With spans and inches so diminutive As fears and reasons? fie, for godly shame! HELENUS No marvel, though you bite so sharp at reasons, You are so empty of them. Should not our father Bear the great sway of his affairs with reasons, Because your speech hath none that tells him so? TROILUS You are for dreams and slumbers, brother priest; You fur your gloves with reason. Here are your reasons: You know an enemy intends you harm; You know a sword employ'd is perilous, And reason flies the object of all harm: Who marvels then, when Helenus beholds A Grecian and his sword, if he do set The very wings of reason to his heels And fly like chidden Mercury from Jove, Or like a star disorb'd? Nay, if we talk of reason, Let's shut our gates and sleep: manhood and honour Should have hare-hearts, would they but fat their thoughts With this cramm'd reason: reason and respect Make livers pale and lustihood deject. HECTOR Brother, she is not worth what she doth cost The holding. TROILUS What is aught, but as 'tis valued? HECTOR But value dwells not in particular will; It holds his estimate and dignity As well wherein 'tis precious of itself As in the prizer: 'tis mad idolatry To make the service greater than the god And the will dotes that is attributive To what infectiously itself affects, Without some image of the affected merit. TROILUS I take to-day a wife, and my election Is led on in the conduct of my will; My will enkindled by mine eyes and ears, Two traded pilots 'twixt the dangerous shores Of will and judgment: how may I avoid, Although my will distaste what it elected, The wife I chose? there can be no evasion To blench from this and to stand firm by honour: We turn not back the silks upon the merchant, When we have soil'd them, nor the remainder viands We do not throw in unrespective sieve, Because we now are full. It was thought meet Paris should do some vengeance on the Greeks: Your breath of full consent bellied his sails; The seas and winds, old wranglers, took a truce And did him service: he touch'd the ports desired, And for an old aunt whom the Greeks held captive, He brought a Grecian queen, whose youth and freshness Wrinkles Apollo's, and makes stale the morning. Why keep we her? the Grecians keep our aunt: Is she worth keeping? why, she is a pearl, Whose price hath launch'd above a thousand ships, And turn'd crown'd kings to merchants. If you'll avouch 'twas wisdom Paris went-- As you must needs, for you all cried 'Go, go,'-- If you'll confess he brought home noble prize-- As you must needs, for you all clapp'd your hands And cried 'Inestimable!'--why do you now The issue of your proper wisdoms rate, And do a deed that fortune never did, Beggar the estimation which you prized Richer than sea and land? O, theft most base, That we have stol'n what we do fear to keep! But, thieves, unworthy of a thing so stol'n, That in their country did them that disgrace, We fear to warrant in our native place! CASSANDRA [Within] Cry, Trojans, cry! PRIAM What noise? what shriek is this? TROILUS 'Tis our mad sister, I do know her voice. CASSANDRA [Within] Cry, Trojans! HECTOR It is Cassandra. [Enter CASSANDRA, raving] CASSANDRA Cry, Trojans, cry! lend me ten thousand eyes, And I will fill them with prophetic tears. HECTOR Peace, sister, peace! CASSANDRA Virgins and boys, mid-age and wrinkled eld, Soft infancy, that nothing canst but cry, Add to my clamours! let us pay betimes A moiety of that mass of moan to come. Cry, Trojans, cry! practise your eyes with tears! Troy must not be, nor goodly Ilion stand; Our firebrand brother, Paris, burns us all. Cry, Trojans, cry! a Helen and a woe: Cry, cry! Troy burns, or else let Helen go. [Exit] HECTOR Now, youthful Troilus, do not these high strains Of divination in our sister work Some touches of remorse? or is your blood So madly hot that no discourse of reason, Nor fear of bad success in a bad cause, Can qualify the same? TROILUS Why, brother Hector, We may not think the justness of each act Such and no other than event doth form it, Nor once deject the courage of our minds, Because Cassandra's mad: her brain-sick raptures Cannot distaste the goodness of a quarrel Which hath our several honours all engaged To make it gracious. For my private part, I am no more touch'd than all Priam's sons: And Jove forbid there should be done amongst us Such things as might offend the weakest spleen To fight for and maintain! PARIS Else might the world convince of levity As well my undertakings as your counsels: But I attest the gods, your full consent Gave wings to my propension and cut off All fears attending on so dire a project. For what, alas, can these my single arms? What Propugnation is in one man's valour, To stand the push and enmity of those This quarrel would excite? Yet, I protest, Were I alone to pass the difficulties And had as ample power as I have will, Paris should ne'er retract what he hath done, Nor faint in the pursuit. PRIAM Paris, you speak Like one besotted on your sweet delights: You have the honey still, but these the gall; So to be valiant is no praise at all. PARIS Sir, I propose not merely to myself The pleasures such a beauty brings with it; But I would have the soil of her fair rape Wiped off, in honourable keeping her. What treason were it to the ransack'd queen, Disgrace to your great worths and shame to me, Now to deliver her possession up On terms of base compulsion! Can it be That so degenerate a strain as this Should once set footing in your generous bosoms? There's not the meanest spirit on our party Without a heart to dare or sword to draw When Helen is defended, nor none so noble Whose life were ill bestow'd or death unfamed Where Helen is the subject; then, I say, Well may we fight for her whom, we know well, The world's large spaces cannot parallel. HECTOR Paris and Troilus, you have both said well, And on the cause and question now in hand Have glozed, but superficially: not much Unlike young men, whom Aristotle thought Unfit to hear moral philosophy: The reasons you allege do more conduce To the hot passion of distemper'd blood Than to make up a free determination 'Twixt right and wrong, for pleasure and revenge Have ears more deaf than adders to the voice Of any true decision. Nature craves All dues be render'd to their owners: now, What nearer debt in all humanity Than wife is to the husband? If this law Of nature be corrupted through affection, And that great minds, of partial indulgence To their benumbed wills, resist the same, There is a law in each well-order'd nation To curb those raging appetites that are Most disobedient and refractory. If Helen then be wife to Sparta's king, As it is known she is, these moral laws Of nature and of nations speak aloud To have her back return'd: thus to persist In doing wrong extenuates not wrong, But makes it much more heavy. Hector's opinion Is this in way of truth; yet ne'ertheless, My spritely brethren, I propend to you In resolution to keep Helen still, For 'tis a cause that hath no mean dependance Upon our joint and several dignities. TROILUS Why, there you touch'd the life of our design: Were it not glory that we more affected Than the performance of our heaving spleens, I would not wish a drop of Trojan blood Spent more in her defence. But, worthy Hector, She is a theme of honour and renown, A spur to valiant and magnanimous deeds, Whose present courage may beat down our foes, And fame in time to come canonize us; For, I presume, brave Hector would not lose So rich advantage of a promised glory As smiles upon the forehead of this action For the wide world's revenue. HECTOR I am yours, You valiant offspring of great Priamus. I have a roisting challenge sent amongst The dun and factious nobles of the Greeks Will strike amazement to their drowsy spirits: I was advertised their great general slept, Whilst emulation in the army crept: This, I presume, will wake him. [Exeunt] TROILUS AND CRESSIDA ACT II SCENE III The Grecian camp. Before Achilles' tent. [Enter THERSITES, solus] THERSITES How now, Thersites! what lost in the labyrinth of thy fury! Shall the elephant Ajax carry it thus? He beats me, and I rail at him: O, worthy satisfaction! would it were otherwise; that I could beat him, whilst he railed at me. 'Sfoot, I'll learn to conjure and raise devils, but I'll see some issue of my spiteful execrations. Then there's Achilles, a rare enginer! If Troy be not taken till these two undermine it, the walls will stand till they fall of themselves. O thou great thunder-darter of Olympus, forget that thou art Jove, the king of gods and, Mercury, lose all the serpentine craft of thy caduceus, if ye take not that little, little less than little wit from them that they have! which short-armed ignorance itself knows is so abundant scarce, it will not in circumvention deliver a fly from a spider, without drawing their massy irons and cutting the web. After this, the vengeance on the whole camp! or rather, the bone-ache! for that, methinks, is the curse dependent on those that war for a placket. I have said my prayers and devil Envy say Amen. What ho! my Lord Achilles! [Enter PATROCLUS] PATROCLUS Who's there? Thersites! Good Thersites, come in and rail. THERSITES If I could have remembered a gilt counterfeit, thou wouldst not have slipped out of my contemplation: but it is no matter; thyself upon thyself! The common curse of mankind, folly and ignorance, be thine in great revenue! heaven bless thee from a tutor, and discipline come not near thee! Let thy blood be thy direction till thy death! then if she that lays thee out says thou art a fair corse, I'll be sworn and sworn upon't she never shrouded any but lazars. Amen. Where's Achilles? PATROCLUS What, art thou devout? wast thou in prayer? THERSITES Ay: the heavens hear me! [Enter ACHILLES] ACHILLES Who's there? PATROCLUS Thersites, my lord. ACHILLES Where, where? Art thou come? why, my cheese, my digestion, why hast thou not served thyself in to my table so many meals? Come, what's Agamemnon? THERSITES Thy commander, Achilles. Then tell me, Patroclus, what's Achilles? PATROCLUS Thy lord, Thersites: then tell me, I pray thee, what's thyself? THERSITES Thy knower, Patroclus: then tell me, Patroclus, what art thou? PATROCLUS Thou mayst tell that knowest. ACHILLES O, tell, tell. THERSITES I'll decline the whole question. Agamemnon commands Achilles; Achilles is my lord; I am Patroclus' knower, and Patroclus is a fool. PATROCLUS You rascal! THERSITES Peace, fool! I have not done. ACHILLES He is a privileged man. Proceed, Thersites. THERSITES Agamemnon is a fool; Achilles is a fool; Thersites is a fool, and, as aforesaid, Patroclus is a fool. ACHILLES Derive this; come. THERSITES Agamemnon is a fool to offer to command Achilles; Achilles is a fool to be commanded of Agamemnon; Thersites is a fool to serve such a fool, and Patroclus is a fool positive. PATROCLUS Why am I a fool? THERSITES Make that demand of the prover. It suffices me thou art. Look you, who comes here? ACHILLES Patroclus, I'll speak with nobody. Come in with me, Thersites. [Exit] THERSITES Here is such patchery, such juggling and such knavery! all the argument is a cuckold and a whore; a good quarrel to draw emulous factions and bleed to death upon. Now, the dry serpigo on the subject! and war and lechery confound all! [Exit] [Enter AGAMEMNON, ULYSSES, NESTOR, DIOMEDES, and AJAX] AGAMEMNON Where is Achilles? PATROCLUS Within his tent; but ill disposed, my lord. AGAMEMNON Let it be known to him that we are here. He shent our messengers; and we lay by Our appertainments, visiting of him: Let him be told so; lest perchance he think We dare not move the question of our place, Or know not what we are. PATROCLUS I shall say so to him. [Exit] ULYSSES We saw him at the opening of his tent: He is not sick. AJAX Yes, lion-sick, sick of proud heart: you may call it melancholy, if you will favour the man; but, by my head, 'tis pride: but why, why? let him show us the cause. A word, my lord. [Takes AGAMEMNON aside] NESTOR What moves Ajax thus to bay at him? ULYSSES Achilles hath inveigled his fool from him. NESTOR Who, Thersites? ULYSSES He. NESTOR Then will Ajax lack matter, if he have lost his argument. ULYSSES No, you see, he is his argument that has his argument, Achilles. NESTOR All the better; their fraction is more our wish than their faction: but it was a strong composure a fool could disunite. ULYSSES The amity that wisdom knits not, folly may easily untie. Here comes Patroclus. [Re-enter PATROCLUS] NESTOR No Achilles with him. ULYSSES The elephant hath joints, but none for courtesy: his legs are legs for necessity, not for flexure. PATROCLUS Achilles bids me say, he is much sorry, If any thing more than your sport and pleasure Did move your greatness and this noble state To call upon him; he hopes it is no other But for your health and your digestion sake, And after-dinner's breath. AGAMEMNON Hear you, Patroclus: We are too well acquainted with these answers: But his evasion, wing'd thus swift with scorn, Cannot outfly our apprehensions. Much attribute he hath, and much the reason Why we ascribe it to him; yet all his virtues, Not virtuously on his own part beheld, Do in our eyes begin to lose their gloss, Yea, like fair fruit in an unwholesome dish, Are like to rot untasted. Go and tell him, We come to speak with him; and you shall not sin, If you do say we think him over-proud And under-honest, in self-assumption greater Than in the note of judgment; and worthier than himself Here tend the savage strangeness he puts on, Disguise the holy strength of their command, And underwrite in an observing kind His humorous predominance; yea, watch His pettish lunes, his ebbs, his flows, as if The passage and whole carriage of this action Rode on his tide. Go tell him this, and add, That if he overhold his price so much, We'll none of him; but let him, like an engine Not portable, lie under this report: 'Bring action hither, this cannot go to war: A stirring dwarf we do allowance give Before a sleeping giant.' Tell him so. PATROCLUS I shall; and bring his answer presently. [Exit] AGAMEMNON In second voice we'll not be satisfied; We come to speak with him. Ulysses, enter you. [Exit ULYSSES] AJAX What is he more than another? AGAMEMNON No more than what he thinks he is. AJAX Is he so much? Do you not think he thinks himself a better man than I am? AGAMEMNON No question. AJAX Will you subscribe his thought, and say he is? AGAMEMNON No, noble Ajax; you are as strong, as valiant, as wise, no less noble, much more gentle, and altogether more tractable. AJAX Why should a man be proud? How doth pride grow? I know not what pride is. AGAMEMNON Your mind is the clearer, Ajax, and your virtues the fairer. He that is proud eats up himself: pride is his own glass, his own trumpet, his own chronicle; and whatever praises itself but in the deed, devours the deed in the praise. AJAX I do hate a proud man, as I hate the engendering of toads. NESTOR Yet he loves himself: is't not strange? [Aside] [Re-enter ULYSSES] ULYSSES Achilles will not to the field to-morrow. AGAMEMNON What's his excuse? ULYSSES He doth rely on none, But carries on the stream of his dispose Without observance or respect of any, In will peculiar and in self-admission. AGAMEMNON Why will he not upon our fair request Untent his person and share the air with us? ULYSSES Things small as nothing, for request's sake only, He makes important: possess'd he is with greatness, And speaks not to himself but with a pride That quarrels at self-breath: imagined worth Holds in his blood such swoln and hot discourse That 'twixt his mental and his active parts Kingdom'd Achilles in commotion rages And batters down himself: what should I say? He is so plaguy proud that the death-tokens of it Cry 'No recovery.' AGAMEMNON Let Ajax go to him. Dear lord, go you and greet him in his tent: 'Tis said he holds you well, and will be led At your request a little from himself. ULYSSES O Agamemnon, let it not be so! We'll consecrate the steps that Ajax makes When they go from Achilles: shall the proud lord That bastes his arrogance with his own seam And never suffers matter of the world Enter his thoughts, save such as do revolve And ruminate himself, shall he be worshipp'd Of that we hold an idol more than he? No, this thrice worthy and right valiant lord Must not so stale his palm, nobly acquired; Nor, by my will, assubjugate his merit, As amply titled as Achilles is, By going to Achilles: That were to enlard his fat already pride And add more coals to Cancer when he burns With entertaining great Hyperion. This lord go to him! Jupiter forbid, And say in thunder 'Achilles go to him.' NESTOR [Aside to DIOMEDES] O, this is well; he rubs the vein of him. DIOMEDES [Aside to NESTOR] And how his silence drinks up this applause! AJAX If I go to him, with my armed fist I'll pash him o'er the face. AGAMEMNON O, no, you shall not go. AJAX An a' be proud with me, I'll pheeze his pride: Let me go to him. ULYSSES Not for the worth that hangs upon our quarrel. AJAX A paltry, insolent fellow! NESTOR How he describes himself! AJAX Can he not be sociable? ULYSSES The raven chides blackness. AJAX I'll let his humours blood. AGAMEMNON He will be the physician that should be the patient. AJAX An all men were o' my mind,-- ULYSSES Wit would be out of fashion. AJAX A' should not bear it so, a' should eat swords first: shall pride carry it? NESTOR An 'twould, you'ld carry half. ULYSSES A' would have ten shares. AJAX I will knead him; I'll make him supple. NESTOR He's not yet through warm: force him with praises: pour in, pour in; his ambition is dry. ULYSSES [To AGAMEMNON] My lord, you feed too much on this dislike. NESTOR Our noble general, do not do so. DIOMEDES You must prepare to fight without Achilles. ULYSSES Why, 'tis this naming of him does him harm. Here is a man--but 'tis before his face; I will be silent. NESTOR Wherefore should you so? He is not emulous, as Achilles is. ULYSSES Know the whole world, he is as valiant. AJAX A whoreson dog, that shall pelter thus with us! Would he were a Trojan! NESTOR What a vice were it in Ajax now,-- ULYSSES If he were proud,-- DIOMEDES Or covetous of praise,-- ULYSSES Ay, or surly borne,-- DIOMEDES Or strange, or self-affected! ULYSSES Thank the heavens, lord, thou art of sweet composure; Praise him that got thee, she that gave thee suck: Famed be thy tutor, and thy parts of nature Thrice famed, beyond all erudition: But he that disciplined thy arms to fight, Let Mars divide eternity in twain, And give him half: and, for thy vigour, Bull-bearing Milo his addition yield To sinewy Ajax. I will not praise thy wisdom, Which, like a bourn, a pale, a shore, confines Thy spacious and dilated parts: here's Nestor; Instructed by the antiquary times, He must, he is, he cannot but be wise: Put pardon, father Nestor, were your days As green as Ajax' and your brain so temper'd, You should not have the eminence of him, But be as Ajax. AJAX Shall I call you father? NESTOR Ay, my good son. DIOMEDES Be ruled by him, Lord Ajax. ULYSSES There is no tarrying here; the hart Achilles Keeps thicket. Please it our great general To call together all his state of war; Fresh kings are come to Troy: to-morrow We must with all our main of power stand fast: And here's a lord,--come knights from east to west, And cull their flower, Ajax shall cope the best. AGAMEMNON Go we to council. Let Achilles sleep: Light boats sail swift, though greater hulks draw deep. [Exeunt] TROILUS AND CRESSIDA ACT III SCENE I Troy. Priam's palace. [Enter a Servant and PANDARUS] PANDARUS Friend, you! pray you, a word: do not you follow the young Lord Paris? Servant Ay, sir, when he goes before me. PANDARUS You depend upon him, I mean? Servant Sir, I do depend upon the lord. PANDARUS You depend upon a noble gentleman; I must needs praise him. Servant The lord be praised! PANDARUS You know me, do you not? Servant Faith, sir, superficially. PANDARUS Friend, know me better; I am the Lord Pandarus. Servant I hope I shall know your honour better. PANDARUS I do desire it. Servant You are in the state of grace. PANDARUS Grace! not so, friend: honour and lordship are my titles. [Music within] What music is this? Servant I do but partly know, sir: it is music in parts. PANDARUS Know you the musicians? Servant Wholly, sir. PANDARUS Who play they to? Servant To the hearers, sir. PANDARUS At whose pleasure, friend Servant At mine, sir, and theirs that love music. PANDARUS Command, I mean, friend. Servant Who shall I command, sir? PANDARUS Friend, we understand not one another: I am too courtly and thou art too cunning. At whose request do these men play? Servant That's to 't indeed, sir: marry, sir, at the request of Paris my lord, who's there in person; with him, the mortal Venus, the heart-blood of beauty, love's invisible soul,-- PANDARUS Who, my cousin Cressida? Servant No, sir, Helen: could you not find out that by her attributes? PANDARUS It should seem, fellow, that thou hast not seen the Lady Cressida. I come to speak with Paris from the Prince Troilus: I will make a complimental assault upon him, for my business seethes. Servant Sodden business! there's a stewed phrase indeed! [Enter PARIS and HELEN, attended] PANDARUS Fair be to you, my lord, and to all this fair company! fair desires, in all fair measure, fairly guide them! especially to you, fair queen! fair thoughts be your fair pillow! HELEN Dear lord, you are full of fair words. PANDARUS You speak your fair pleasure, sweet queen. Fair prince, here is good broken music. PARIS You have broke it, cousin: and, by my life, you shall make it whole again; you shall piece it out with a piece of your performance. Nell, he is full of harmony. PANDARUS Truly, lady, no. HELEN O, sir,-- PANDARUS Rude, in sooth; in good sooth, very rude. PARIS Well said, my lord! well, you say so in fits. PANDARUS I have business to my lord, dear queen. My lord, will you vouchsafe me a word? HELEN Nay, this shall not hedge us out: we'll hear you sing, certainly. PANDARUS Well, sweet queen. you are pleasant with me. But, marry, thus, my lord: my dear lord and most esteemed friend, your brother Troilus,-- HELEN My Lord Pandarus; honey-sweet lord,-- PANDARUS Go to, sweet queen, to go:--commends himself most affectionately to you,-- HELEN You shall not bob us out of our melody: if you do, our melancholy upon your head! PANDARUS Sweet queen, sweet queen! that's a sweet queen, i' faith. HELEN And to make a sweet lady sad is a sour offence. PANDARUS Nay, that shall not serve your turn; that shall not, in truth, la. Nay, I care not for such words; no, no. And, my lord, he desires you, that if the king call for him at supper, you will make his excuse. HELEN My Lord Pandarus,-- PANDARUS What says my sweet queen, my very very sweet queen? PARIS What exploit's in hand? where sups he to-night? HELEN Nay, but, my lord,-- PANDARUS What says my sweet queen? My cousin will fall out with you. You must not know where he sups. PARIS I'll lay my life, with my disposer Cressida. PANDARUS No, no, no such matter; you are wide: come, your disposer is sick. PARIS Well, I'll make excuse. PANDARUS Ay, good my lord. Why should you say Cressida? no, your poor disposer's sick. PARIS I spy. PANDARUS You spy! what do you spy? Come, give me an instrument. Now, sweet queen. HELEN Why, this is kindly done. PANDARUS My niece is horribly in love with a thing you have, sweet queen. HELEN She shall have it, my lord, if it be not my lord Paris. PANDARUS He! no, she'll none of him; they two are twain. HELEN Falling in, after falling out, may make them three. PANDARUS Come, come, I'll hear no more of this; I'll sing you a song now. HELEN Ay, ay, prithee now. By my troth, sweet lord, thou hast a fine forehead. PANDARUS Ay, you may, you may. HELEN Let thy song be love: this love will undo us all. O Cupid, Cupid, Cupid! PANDARUS Love! ay, that it shall, i' faith. PARIS Ay, good now, love, love, nothing but love. PANDARUS In good troth, it begins so. [Sings] Love, love, nothing but love, still more! For, O, love's bow Shoots buck and doe: The shaft confounds, Not that it wounds, But tickles still the sore. These lovers cry Oh! oh! they die! Yet that which seems the wound to kill, Doth turn oh! oh! to ha! ha! he! So dying love lives still: Oh! oh! a while, but ha! ha! ha! Oh! oh! groans out for ha! ha! ha! Heigh-ho! HELEN In love, i' faith, to the very tip of the nose. PARIS He eats nothing but doves, love, and that breeds hot blood, and hot blood begets hot thoughts, and hot thoughts beget hot deeds, and hot deeds is love. PANDARUS Is this the generation of love? hot blood, hot thoughts, and hot deeds? Why, they are vipers: is love a generation of vipers? Sweet lord, who's a-field to-day? PARIS Hector, Deiphobus, Helenus, Antenor, and all the gallantry of Troy: I would fain have armed to-day, but my Nell would not have it so. How chance my brother Troilus went not? HELEN He hangs the lip at something: you know all, Lord Pandarus. PANDARUS Not I, honey-sweet queen. I long to hear how they sped to-day. You'll remember your brother's excuse? PARIS To a hair. PANDARUS Farewell, sweet queen. HELEN Commend me to your niece. PANDARUS I will, sweet queen. [Exit] [A retreat sounded] PARIS They're come from field: let us to Priam's hall, To greet the warriors. Sweet Helen, I must woo you To help unarm our Hector: his stubborn buckles, With these your white enchanting fingers touch'd, Shall more obey than to the edge of steel Or force of Greekish sinews; you shall do more Than all the island kings,--disarm great Hector. HELEN 'Twill make us proud to be his servant, Paris; Yea, what he shall receive of us in duty Gives us more palm in beauty than we have, Yea, overshines ourself. PARIS Sweet, above thought I love thee. [Exeunt] TROILUS AND CRESSIDA ACT III SCENE II The same. Pandarus' orchard. [Enter PANDARUS and Troilus's Boy, meeting] PANDARUS How now! where's thy master? at my cousin Cressida's? Boy No, sir; he stays for you to conduct him thither. PANDARUS O, here he comes. [Enter TROILUS] How now, how now! TROILUS Sirrah, walk off. [Exit Boy] PANDARUS Have you seen my cousin? TROILUS No, Pandarus: I stalk about her door, Like a strange soul upon the Stygian banks Staying for waftage. O, be thou my Charon, And give me swift transportance to those fields Where I may wallow in the lily-beds Proposed for the deserver! O gentle Pandarus, From Cupid's shoulder pluck his painted wings And fly with me to Cressid! PANDARUS Walk here i' the orchard, I'll bring her straight. [Exit] TROILUS I am giddy; expectation whirls me round. The imaginary relish is so sweet That it enchants my sense: what will it be, When that the watery palate tastes indeed Love's thrice repured nectar? death, I fear me, Swooning destruction, or some joy too fine, Too subtle-potent, tuned too sharp in sweetness, For the capacity of my ruder powers: I fear it much; and I do fear besides, That I shall lose distinction in my joys; As doth a battle, when they charge on heaps The enemy flying. [Re-enter PANDARUS] PANDARUS She's making her ready, she'll come straight: you must be witty now. She does so blush, and fetches her wind so short, as if she were frayed with a sprite: I'll fetch her. It is the prettiest villain: she fetches her breath as short as a new-ta'en sparrow. [Exit] TROILUS Even such a passion doth embrace my bosom: My heart beats thicker than a feverous pulse; And all my powers do their bestowing lose, Like vassalage at unawares encountering The eye of majesty. [Re-enter PANDARUS with CRESSIDA] PANDARUS Come, come, what need you blush? shame's a baby. Here she is now: swear the oaths now to her that you have sworn to me. What, are you gone again? you must be watched ere you be made tame, must you? Come your ways, come your ways; an you draw backward, we'll put you i' the fills. Why do you not speak to her? Come, draw this curtain, and let's see your picture. Alas the day, how loath you are to offend daylight! an 'twere dark, you'ld close sooner. So, so; rub on, and kiss the mistress. How now! a kiss in fee-farm! build there, carpenter; the air is sweet. Nay, you shall fight your hearts out ere I part you. The falcon as the tercel, for all the ducks i' the river: go to, go to. TROILUS You have bereft me of all words, lady. PANDARUS Words pay no debts, give her deeds: but she'll bereave you o' the deeds too, if she call your activity in question. What, billing again? Here's 'In witness whereof the parties interchangeably'-- Come in, come in: I'll go get a fire. [Exit] CRESSIDA Will you walk in, my lord? TROILUS O Cressida, how often have I wished me thus! CRESSIDA Wished, my lord! The gods grant,--O my lord! TROILUS What should they grant? what makes this pretty abruption? What too curious dreg espies my sweet lady in the fountain of our love? CRESSIDA More dregs than water, if my fears have eyes. TROILUS Fears make devils of cherubims; they never see truly. CRESSIDA Blind fear, that seeing reason leads, finds safer footing than blind reason stumbling without fear: to fear the worst oft cures the worse. TROILUS O, let my lady apprehend no fear: in all Cupid's pageant there is presented no monster. CRESSIDA Nor nothing monstrous neither? TROILUS Nothing, but our undertakings; when we vow to weep seas, live in fire, eat rocks, tame tigers; thinking it harder for our mistress to devise imposition enough than for us to undergo any difficulty imposed. This is the monstruosity in love, lady, that the will is infinite and the execution confined, that the desire is boundless and the act a slave to limit. CRESSIDA They say all lovers swear more performance than they are able and yet reserve an ability that they never perform, vowing more than the perfection of ten and discharging less than the tenth part of one. They that have the voice of lions and the act of hares, are they not monsters? TROILUS Are there such? such are not we: praise us as we are tasted, allow us as we prove; our head shall go bare till merit crown it: no perfection in reversion shall have a praise in present: we will not name desert before his birth, and, being born, his addition shall be humble. Few words to fair faith: Troilus shall be such to Cressid as what envy can say worst shall be a mock for his truth, and what truth can speak truest not truer than Troilus. CRESSIDA Will you walk in, my lord? [Re-enter PANDARUS] PANDARUS What, blushing still? have you not done talking yet? CRESSIDA Well, uncle, what folly I commit, I dedicate to you. PANDARUS I thank you for that: if my lord get a boy of you, you'll give him me. Be true to my lord: if he flinch, chide me for it. TROILUS You know now your hostages; your uncle's word and my firm faith. PANDARUS Nay, I'll give my word for her too: our kindred, though they be long ere they are wooed, they are constant being won: they are burs, I can tell you; they'll stick where they are thrown. CRESSIDA Boldness comes to me now, and brings me heart. Prince Troilus, I have loved you night and day For many weary months. TROILUS Why was my Cressid then so hard to win? CRESSIDA Hard to seem won: but I was won, my lord, With the first glance that ever--pardon me-- If I confess much, you will play the tyrant. I love you now; but not, till now, so much But I might master it: in faith, I lie; My thoughts were like unbridled children, grown Too headstrong for their mother. See, we fools! Why have I blabb'd? who shall be true to us, When we are so unsecret to ourselves? But, though I loved you well, I woo'd you not; And yet, good faith, I wish'd myself a man, Or that we women had men's privilege Of speaking first. Sweet, bid me hold my tongue, For in this rapture I shall surely speak The thing I shall repent. See, see, your silence, Cunning in dumbness, from my weakness draws My very soul of counsel! stop my mouth. TROILUS And shall, albeit sweet music issues thence. PANDARUS Pretty, i' faith. CRESSIDA My lord, I do beseech you, pardon me; 'Twas not my purpose, thus to beg a kiss: I am ashamed. O heavens! what have I done? For this time will I take my leave, my lord. TROILUS Your leave, sweet Cressid! PANDARUS Leave! an you take leave till to-morrow morning,-- CRESSIDA Pray you, content you. TROILUS What offends you, lady? CRESSIDA Sir, mine own company. TROILUS You cannot shun Yourself. CRESSIDA Let me go and try: I have a kind of self resides with you; But an unkind self, that itself will leave, To be another's fool. I would be gone: Where is my wit? I know not what I speak. TROILUS Well know they what they speak that speak so wisely. CRESSIDA Perchance, my lord, I show more craft than love; And fell so roundly to a large confession, To angle for your thoughts: but you are wise, Or else you love not, for to be wise and love Exceeds man's might; that dwells with gods above. TROILUS O that I thought it could be in a woman-- As, if it can, I will presume in you-- To feed for aye her ramp and flames of love; To keep her constancy in plight and youth, Outliving beauty's outward, with a mind That doth renew swifter than blood decays! Or that persuasion could but thus convince me, That my integrity and truth to you Might be affronted with the match and weight Of such a winnow'd purity in love; How were I then uplifted! but, alas! I am as true as truth's simplicity And simpler than the infancy of truth. CRESSIDA In that I'll war with you. TROILUS O virtuous fight, When right with right wars who shall be most right! True swains in love shall in the world to come Approve their truths by Troilus: when their rhymes, Full of protest, of oath and big compare, Want similes, truth tired with iteration, As true as steel, as plantage to the moon, As sun to day, as turtle to her mate, As iron to adamant, as earth to the centre, Yet, after all comparisons of truth, As truth's authentic author to be cited, 'As true as Troilus' shall crown up the verse, And sanctify the numbers. CRESSIDA Prophet may you be! If I be false, or swerve a hair from truth, When time is old and hath forgot itself, When waterdrops have worn the stones of Troy, And blind oblivion swallow'd cities up, And mighty states characterless are grated To dusty nothing, yet let memory, From false to false, among false maids in love, Upbraid my falsehood! when they've said 'as false As air, as water, wind, or sandy earth, As fox to lamb, as wolf to heifer's calf, Pard to the hind, or stepdame to her son,' 'Yea,' let them say, to stick the heart of falsehood, 'As false as Cressid.' PANDARUS Go to, a bargain made: seal it, seal it; I'll be the witness. Here I hold your hand, here my cousin's. If ever you prove false one to another, since I have taken such pains to bring you together, let all pitiful goers-between be called to the world's end after my name; call them all Pandars; let all constant men be Troiluses, all false women Cressids, and all brokers-between Pandars! say, amen. TROILUS Amen. CRESSIDA Amen. PANDARUS Amen. Whereupon I will show you a chamber with a bed; which bed, because it shall not speak of your pretty encounters, press it to death: away! And Cupid grant all tongue-tied maidens here Bed, chamber, Pandar to provide this gear! [Exeunt] TROILUS AND CRESSIDA ACT III SCENE III The Grecian camp. Before Achilles' tent. [Enter AGAMEMNON, ULYSSES, DIOMEDES, NESTOR, AJAX, MENELAUS, and CALCHAS] CALCHAS Now, princes, for the service I have done you, The advantage of the time prompts me aloud To call for recompense. Appear it to your mind That, through the sight I bear in things to love, I have abandon'd Troy, left my possession, Incurr'd a traitor's name; exposed myself, From certain and possess'd conveniences, To doubtful fortunes; sequestering from me all That time, acquaintance, custom and condition Made tame and most familiar to my nature, And here, to do you service, am become As new into the world, strange, unacquainted: I do beseech you, as in way of taste, To give me now a little benefit, Out of those many register'd in promise, Which, you say, live to come in my behalf. AGAMEMNON What wouldst thou of us, Trojan? make demand. CALCHAS You have a Trojan prisoner, call'd Antenor, Yesterday took: Troy holds him very dear. Oft have you--often have you thanks therefore-- Desired my Cressid in right great exchange, Whom Troy hath still denied: but this Antenor, I know, is such a wrest in their affairs That their negotiations all must slack, Wanting his manage; and they will almost Give us a prince of blood, a son of Priam, In change of him: let him be sent, great princes, And he shall buy my daughter; and her presence Shall quite strike off all service I have done, In most accepted pain. AGAMEMNON Let Diomedes bear him, And bring us Cressid hither: Calchas shall have What he requests of us. Good Diomed, Furnish you fairly for this interchange: Withal bring word if Hector will to-morrow Be answer'd in his challenge: Ajax is ready. DIOMEDES This shall I undertake; and 'tis a burden Which I am proud to bear. [Exeunt DIOMEDES and CALCHAS] [Enter ACHILLES and PATROCLUS, before their tent] ULYSSES Achilles stands i' the entrance of his tent: Please it our general to pass strangely by him, As if he were forgot; and, princes all, Lay negligent and loose regard upon him: I will come last. 'Tis like he'll question me Why such unplausive eyes are bent on him: If so, I have derision medicinable, To use between your strangeness and his pride, Which his own will shall have desire to drink: It may be good: pride hath no other glass To show itself but pride, for supple knees Feed arrogance and are the proud man's fees. AGAMEMNON We'll execute your purpose, and put on A form of strangeness as we pass along: So do each lord, and either greet him not, Or else disdainfully, which shall shake him more Than if not look'd on. I will lead the way. ACHILLES What, comes the general to speak with me? You know my mind, I'll fight no more 'gainst Troy. AGAMEMNON What says Achilles? would he aught with us? NESTOR Would you, my lord, aught with the general? ACHILLES No. NESTOR Nothing, my lord. AGAMEMNON The better. [Exeunt AGAMEMNON and NESTOR] ACHILLES Good day, good day. MENELAUS How do you? how do you? [Exit] ACHILLES What, does the cuckold scorn me? AJAX How now, Patroclus! ACHILLES Good morrow, Ajax. AJAX Ha? ACHILLES Good morrow. AJAX Ay, and good next day too. [Exit] ACHILLES What mean these fellows? Know they not Achilles? PATROCLUS They pass by strangely: they were used to bend To send their smiles before them to Achilles; To come as humbly as they used to creep To holy altars. ACHILLES What, am I poor of late? 'Tis certain, greatness, once fall'n out with fortune, Must fall out with men too: what the declined is He shall as soon read in the eyes of others As feel in his own fall; for men, like butterflies, Show not their mealy wings but to the summer, And not a man, for being simply man, Hath any honour, but honour for those honours That are without him, as place, riches, favour, Prizes of accident as oft as merit: Which when they fall, as being slippery standers, The love that lean'd on them as slippery too, Do one pluck down another and together Die in the fall. But 'tis not so with me: Fortune and I are friends: I do enjoy At ample point all that I did possess, Save these men's looks; who do, methinks, find out Something not worth in me such rich beholding As they have often given. Here is Ulysses; I'll interrupt his reading. How now Ulysses! ULYSSES Now, great Thetis' son! ACHILLES What are you reading? ULYSSES A strange fellow here Writes me: 'That man, how dearly ever parted, How much in having, or without or in, Cannot make boast to have that which he hath, Nor feels not what he owes, but by reflection; As when his virtues shining upon others Heat them and they retort that heat again To the first giver.' ACHILLES This is not strange, Ulysses. The beauty that is borne here in the face The bearer knows not, but commends itself To others' eyes; nor doth the eye itself, That most pure spirit of sense, behold itself, Not going from itself; but eye to eye opposed Salutes each other with each other's form; For speculation turns not to itself, Till it hath travell'd and is mirror'd there Where it may see itself. This is not strange at all. ULYSSES I do not strain at the position,-- It is familiar,--but at the author's drift; Who, in his circumstance, expressly proves That no man is the lord of any thing, Though in and of him there be much consisting, Till he communicate his parts to others: Nor doth he of himself know them for aught Till he behold them form'd in the applause Where they're extended; who, like an arch, reverberates The voice again, or, like a gate of steel Fronting the sun, receives and renders back His figure and his heat. I was much wrapt in this; And apprehended here immediately The unknown Ajax. Heavens, what a man is there! a very horse, That has he knows not what. Nature, what things there are Most abject in regard and dear in use! What things again most dear in the esteem And poor in worth! Now shall we see to-morrow-- An act that very chance doth throw upon him-- Ajax renown'd. O heavens, what some men do, While some men leave to do! How some men creep in skittish fortune's hall, Whiles others play the idiots in her eyes! How one man eats into another's pride, While pride is fasting in his wantonness! To see these Grecian lords!--why, even already They clap the lubber Ajax on the shoulder, As if his foot were on brave Hector's breast And great Troy shrieking. ACHILLES I do believe it; for they pass'd by me As misers do by beggars, neither gave to me Good word nor look: what, are my deeds forgot? ULYSSES Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back, Wherein he puts alms for oblivion, A great-sized monster of ingratitudes: Those scraps are good deeds past; which are devour'd As fast as they are made, forgot as soon As done: perseverance, dear my lord, Keeps honour bright: to have done is to hang Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail In monumental mockery. Take the instant way; For honour travels in a strait so narrow, Where one but goes abreast: keep then the path; For emulation hath a thousand sons That one by one pursue: if you give way, Or hedge aside from the direct forthright, Like to an enter'd tide, they all rush by And leave you hindmost; Or like a gallant horse fall'n in first rank, Lie there for pavement to the abject rear, O'er-run and trampled on: then what they do in present, Though less than yours in past, must o'ertop yours; For time is like a fashionable host That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand, And with his arms outstretch'd, as he would fly, Grasps in the comer: welcome ever smiles, And farewell goes out sighing. O, let not virtue seek Remuneration for the thing it was; For beauty, wit, High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service, Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all To envious and calumniating time. One touch of nature makes the whole world kin, That all with one consent praise new-born gawds, Though they are made and moulded of things past, And give to dust that is a little gilt More laud than gilt o'er-dusted. The present eye praises the present object. Then marvel not, thou great and complete man, That all the Greeks begin to worship Ajax; Since things in motion sooner catch the eye Than what not stirs. The cry went once on thee, And still it might, and yet it may again, If thou wouldst not entomb thyself alive And case thy reputation in thy tent; Whose glorious deeds, but in these fields of late, Made emulous missions 'mongst the gods themselves And drave great Mars to faction. ACHILLES Of this my privacy I have strong reasons. ULYSSES But 'gainst your privacy The reasons are more potent and heroical: 'Tis known, Achilles, that you are in love With one of Priam's daughters. ACHILLES Ha! known! ULYSSES Is that a wonder? The providence that's in a watchful state Knows almost every grain of Plutus' gold, Finds bottom in the uncomprehensive deeps, Keeps place with thought and almost, like the gods, Does thoughts unveil in their dumb cradles. There is a mystery--with whom relation Durst never meddle--in the soul of state; Which hath an operation more divine Than breath or pen can give expressure to: All the commerce that you have had with Troy As perfectly is ours as yours, my lord; And better would it fit Achilles much To throw down Hector than Polyxena: But it must grieve young Pyrrhus now at home, When fame shall in our islands sound her trump, And all the Greekish girls shall tripping sing, 'Great Hector's sister did Achilles win, But our great Ajax bravely beat down him.' Farewell, my lord: I as your lover speak; The fool slides o'er the ice that you should break. [Exit] PATROCLUS To this effect, Achilles, have I moved you: A woman impudent and mannish grown Is not more loathed than an effeminate man In time of action. I stand condemn'd for this; They think my little stomach to the war And your great love to me restrains you thus: Sweet, rouse yourself; and the weak wanton Cupid Shall from your neck unloose his amorous fold, And, like a dew-drop from the lion's mane, Be shook to air. ACHILLES Shall Ajax fight with Hector? PATROCLUS Ay, and perhaps receive much honour by him. ACHILLES I see my reputation is at stake My fame is shrewdly gored. PATROCLUS O, then, beware; Those wounds heal ill that men do give themselves: Omission to do what is necessary Seals a commission to a blank of danger; And danger, like an ague, subtly taints Even then when we sit idly in the sun. ACHILLES Go call Thersites hither, sweet Patroclus: I'll send the fool to Ajax and desire him To invite the Trojan lords after the combat To see us here unarm'd: I have a woman's longing, An appetite that I am sick withal, To see great Hector in his weeds of peace, To talk with him and to behold his visage, Even to my full of view. [Enter THERSITES] A labour saved! THERSITES A wonder! ACHILLES What? THERSITES Ajax goes up and down the field, asking for himself. ACHILLES How so? THERSITES He must fight singly to-morrow with Hector, and is so prophetically proud of an heroical cudgelling that he raves in saying nothing. ACHILLES How can that be? THERSITES Why, he stalks up and down like a peacock,--a stride and a stand: ruminates like an hostess that hath no arithmetic but her brain to set down her reckoning: bites his lip with a politic regard, as who should say 'There were wit in this head, an 'twould out;' and so there is, but it lies as coldly in him as fire in a flint, which will not show without knocking. The man's undone forever; for if Hector break not his neck i' the combat, he'll break 't himself in vain-glory. He knows not me: I said 'Good morrow, Ajax;' and he replies 'Thanks, Agamemnon.' What think you of this man that takes me for the general? He's grown a very land-fish, language-less, a monster. A plague of opinion! a man may wear it on both sides, like a leather jerkin. ACHILLES Thou must be my ambassador to him, Thersites. THERSITES Who, I? why, he'll answer nobody; he professes not answering: speaking is for beggars; he wears his tongue in's arms. I will put on his presence: let Patroclus make demands to me, you shall see the pageant of Ajax. ACHILLES To him, Patroclus; tell him I humbly desire the valiant Ajax to invite the most valorous Hector to come unarmed to my tent, and to procure safe-conduct for his person of the magnanimous and most illustrious six-or-seven-times-honoured captain-general of the Grecian army, Agamemnon, et cetera. Do this. PATROCLUS Jove bless great Ajax! THERSITES Hum! PATROCLUS I come from the worthy Achilles,-- THERSITES Ha! PATROCLUS Who most humbly desires you to invite Hector to his tent,-- THERSITES Hum! PATROCLUS And to procure safe-conduct from Agamemnon. THERSITES Agamemnon! PATROCLUS Ay, my lord. THERSITES Ha! PATROCLUS What say you to't? THERSITES God b' wi' you, with all my heart. PATROCLUS Your answer, sir. THERSITES If to-morrow be a fair day, by eleven o'clock it will go one way or other: howsoever, he shall pay for me ere he has me. PATROCLUS Your answer, sir. THERSITES Fare you well, with all my heart. ACHILLES Why, but he is not in this tune, is he? THERSITES No, but he's out o' tune thus. What music will be in him when Hector has knocked out his brains, I know not; but, I am sure, none, unless the fiddler Apollo get his sinews to make catlings on. ACHILLES Come, thou shalt bear a letter to him straight. THERSITES Let me bear another to his horse; for that's the more capable creature. ACHILLES My mind is troubled, like a fountain stirr'd; And I myself see not the bottom of it. [Exeunt ACHILLES and PATROCLUS] THERSITES Would the fountain of your mind were clear again, that I might water an ass at it! I had rather be a tick in a sheep than such a valiant ignorance. [Exit] TROILUS AND CRESSIDA ACT IV SCENE I Troy. A street. [Enter, from one side, AENEAS, and Servant with a torch; from the other, PARIS, DEIPHOBUS, ANTENOR, DIOMEDES, and others, with torches] PARIS See, ho! who is that there? DEIPHOBUS It is the Lord AEneas. AENEAS Is the prince there in person? Had I so good occasion to lie long As you, prince Paris, nothing but heavenly business Should rob my bed-mate of my company. DIOMEDES That's my mind too. Good morrow, Lord AEneas. PARIS A valiant Greek, AEneas,--take his hand,-- Witness the process of your speech, wherein You told how Diomed, a whole week by days, Did haunt you in the field. AENEAS Health to you, valiant sir, During all question of the gentle truce; But when I meet you arm'd, as black defiance As heart can think or courage execute. DIOMEDES The one and other Diomed embraces. Our bloods are now in calm; and, so long, health! But when contention and occasion meet, By Jove, I'll play the hunter for thy life With all my force, pursuit and policy. AENEAS And thou shalt hunt a lion, that will fly With his face backward. In humane gentleness, Welcome to Troy! now, by Anchises' life, Welcome, indeed! By Venus' hand I swear, No man alive can love in such a sort The thing he means to kill more excellently. DIOMEDES We sympathize: Jove, let AEneas live, If to my sword his fate be not the glory, A thousand complete courses of the sun! But, in mine emulous honour, let him die, With every joint a wound, and that to-morrow! AENEAS We know each other well. DIOMEDES We do; and long to know each other worse. PARIS This is the most despiteful gentle greeting, The noblest hateful love, that e'er I heard of. What business, lord, so early? AENEAS I was sent for to the king; but why, I know not. PARIS His purpose meets you: 'twas to bring this Greek To Calchas' house, and there to render him, For the enfreed Antenor, the fair Cressid: Let's have your company, or, if you please, Haste there before us: I constantly do think-- Or rather, call my thought a certain knowledge-- My brother Troilus lodges there to-night: Rouse him and give him note of our approach. With the whole quality wherefore: I fear We shall be much unwelcome. AENEAS That I assure you: Troilus had rather Troy were borne to Greece Than Cressid borne from Troy. PARIS There is no help; The bitter disposition of the time Will have it so. On, lord; we'll follow you. AENEAS Good morrow, all. [Exit with Servant] PARIS And tell me, noble Diomed, faith, tell me true, Even in the soul of sound good-fellowship, Who, in your thoughts, merits fair Helen best, Myself or Menelaus? DIOMEDES Both alike: He merits well to have her, that doth seek her, Not making any scruple of her soilure, With such a hell of pain and world of charge, And you as well to keep her, that defend her, Not palating the taste of her dishonour, With such a costly loss of wealth and friends: He, like a puling cuckold, would drink up The lees and dregs of a flat tamed piece; You, like a lecher, out of whorish loins Are pleased to breed out your inheritors: Both merits poised, each weighs nor less nor more; But he as he, the heavier for a whore. PARIS You are too bitter to your countrywoman. DIOMEDES She's bitter to her country: hear me, Paris: For every false drop in her bawdy veins A Grecian's life hath sunk; for every scruple Of her contaminated carrion weight, A Trojan hath been slain: since she could speak, She hath not given so many good words breath As for her Greeks and Trojans suffer'd death. PARIS Fair Diomed, you do as chapmen do, Dispraise the thing that you desire to buy: But we in silence hold this virtue well, We'll but commend what we intend to sell. Here lies our way. [Exeunt] TROILUS AND CRESSIDA ACT IV SCENE II The same. Court of Pandarus' house. [Enter TROILUS and CRESSIDA] TROILUS Dear, trouble not yourself: the morn is cold. CRESSIDA Then, sweet my lord, I'll call mine uncle down; He shall unbolt the gates. TROILUS Trouble him not; To bed, to bed: sleep kill those pretty eyes, And give as soft attachment to thy senses As infants' empty of all thought! CRESSIDA Good morrow, then. TROILUS I prithee now, to bed. CRESSIDA Are you a-weary of me? TROILUS O Cressida! but that the busy day, Waked by the lark, hath roused the ribald crows, And dreaming night will hide our joys no longer, I would not from thee. CRESSIDA Night hath been too brief. TROILUS Beshrew the witch! with venomous wights she stays As tediously as hell, but flies the grasps of love With wings more momentary-swift than thought. You will catch cold, and curse me. CRESSIDA Prithee, tarry: You men will never tarry. O foolish Cressid! I might have still held off, And then you would have tarried. Hark! there's one up. PANDARUS [Within] What, 's all the doors open here? TROILUS It is your uncle. CRESSIDA A pestilence on him! now will he be mocking: I shall have such a life! [Enter PANDARUS] PANDARUS How now, how now! how go maidenheads? Here, you maid! where's my cousin Cressid? CRESSIDA Go hang yourself, you naughty mocking uncle! You bring me to do, and then you flout me too. PANDARUS To do what? to do what? let her say what: what have I brought you to do? CRESSIDA Come, come, beshrew your heart! you'll ne'er be good, Nor suffer others. PANDARUS Ha! ha! Alas, poor wretch! ah, poor capocchia! hast not slept to-night? would he not, a naughty man, let it sleep? a bugbear take him! CRESSIDA Did not I tell you? Would he were knock'd i' the head! [Knocking within] Who's that at door? good uncle, go and see. My lord, come you again into my chamber: You smile and mock me, as if I meant naughtily. TROILUS Ha, ha! CRESSIDA Come, you are deceived, I think of no such thing. [Knocking within] How earnestly they knock! Pray you, come in: I would not for half Troy have you seen here. [Exeunt TROILUS and CRESSIDA] PANDARUS Who's there? what's the matter? will you beat down the door? How now! what's the matter? [Enter AENEAS] AENEAS Good morrow, lord, good morrow. PANDARUS Who's there? my Lord AEneas! By my troth, I knew you not: what news with you so early? AENEAS Is not Prince Troilus here? PANDARUS Here! what should he do here? AENEAS Come, he is here, my lord; do not deny him: It doth import him much to speak with me. PANDARUS Is he here, say you? 'tis more than I know, I'll be sworn: for my own part, I came in late. What should he do here? AENEAS Who!--nay, then: come, come, you'll do him wrong ere you're ware: you'll be so true to him, to be false to him: do not you know of him, but yet go fetch him hither; go. [Re-enter TROILUS] TROILUS How now! what's the matter? AENEAS My lord, I scarce have leisure to salute you, My matter is so rash: there is at hand Paris your brother, and Deiphobus, The Grecian Diomed, and our Antenor Deliver'd to us; and for him forthwith, Ere the first sacrifice, within this hour, We must give up to Diomedes' hand The Lady Cressida. TROILUS Is it so concluded? AENEAS By Priam and the general state of Troy: They are at hand and ready to effect it. TROILUS How my achievements mock me! I will go meet them: and, my Lord AEneas, We met by chance; you did not find me here. AENEAS Good, good, my lord; the secrets of nature Have not more gift in taciturnity. [Exeunt TROILUS and AENEAS] PANDARUS Is't possible? no sooner got but lost? The devil take Antenor! the young prince will go mad: a plague upon Antenor! I would they had broke 's neck! [Re-enter CRESSIDA] CRESSIDA How now! what's the matter? who was here? PANDARUS Ah, ah! CRESSIDA Why sigh you so profoundly? where's my lord? gone! Tell me, sweet uncle, what's the matter? PANDARUS Would I were as deep under the earth as I am above! CRESSIDA O the gods! what's the matter? PANDARUS Prithee, get thee in: would thou hadst ne'er been born! I knew thou wouldst be his death. O, poor gentleman! A plague upon Antenor! CRESSIDA Good uncle, I beseech you, on my knees! beseech you, what's the matter? PANDARUS Thou must be gone, wench, thou must be gone; thou art changed for Antenor: thou must to thy father, and be gone from Troilus: 'twill be his death; 'twill be his bane; he cannot bear it. CRESSIDA O you immortal gods! I will not go. PANDARUS Thou must. CRESSIDA I will not, uncle: I have forgot my father; I know no touch of consanguinity; No kin no love, no blood, no soul so near me As the sweet Troilus. O you gods divine! Make Cressid's name the very crown of falsehood, If ever she leave Troilus! Time, force, and death, Do to this body what extremes you can; But the strong base and building of my love Is as the very centre of the earth, Drawing all things to it. I'll go in and weep,-- PANDARUS Do, do. CRESSIDA Tear my bright hair and scratch my praised cheeks, Crack my clear voice with sobs and break my heart With sounding Troilus. I will not go from Troy. [Exeunt] TROILUS AND CRESSIDA ACT IV SCENE III The same. Street before Pandarus' house. [Enter PARIS, TROILUS, AENEAS, DEIPHOBUS, ANTENOR, and DIOMEDES] PARIS It is great morning, and the hour prefix'd Of her delivery to this valiant Greek Comes fast upon. Good my brother Troilus, Tell you the lady what she is to do, And haste her to the purpose. TROILUS Walk into her house; I'll bring her to the Grecian presently: And to his hand when I deliver her, Think it an altar, and thy brother Troilus A priest there offering to it his own heart. [Exit] PARIS I know what 'tis to love; And would, as I shall pity, I could help! Please you walk in, my lords. [Exeunt] TROILUS AND CRESSIDA ACT IV SCENE IV The same. Pandarus' house. [Enter PANDARUS and CRESSIDA] PANDARUS Be moderate, be moderate. CRESSIDA Why tell you me of moderation? The grief is fine, full, perfect, that I taste, And violenteth in a sense as strong As that which causeth it: how can I moderate it? If I could temporize with my affection, Or brew it to a weak and colder palate, The like allayment could I give my grief. My love admits no qualifying dross; No more my grief, in such a precious loss. PANDARUS Here, here, here he comes. [Enter TROILUS] Ah, sweet ducks! CRESSIDA O Troilus! Troilus! [Embracing him] PANDARUS What a pair of spectacles is here! Let me embrace too. 'O heart,' as the goodly saying is, '--O heart, heavy heart, Why sigh'st thou without breaking? where he answers again, 'Because thou canst not ease thy smart By friendship nor by speaking.' There was never a truer rhyme. Let us cast away nothing, for we may live to have need of such a verse: we see it, we see it. How now, lambs? TROILUS Cressid, I love thee in so strain'd a purity, That the bless'd gods, as angry with my fancy, More bright in zeal than the devotion which Cold lips blow to their deities, take thee from me. CRESSIDA Have the gods envy? PANDARUS Ay, ay, ay, ay; 'tis too plain a case. CRESSIDA And is it true that I must go from Troy? TROILUS A hateful truth. CRESSIDA What, and from Troilus too? TROILUS From Troy and Troilus. CRESSIDA Is it possible? TROILUS And suddenly; where injury of chance Puts back leave-taking, justles roughly by All time of pause, rudely beguiles our lips Of all rejoindure, forcibly prevents Our lock'd embrasures, strangles our dear vows Even in the birth of our own labouring breath: We two, that with so many thousand sighs Did buy each other, must poorly sell ourselves With the rude brevity and discharge of one. Injurious time now with a robber's haste Crams his rich thievery up, he knows not how: As many farewells as be stars in heaven, With distinct breath and consign'd kisses to them, He fumbles up into a lose adieu, And scants us with a single famish'd kiss, Distasted with the salt of broken tears. AENEAS [Within] My lord, is the lady ready? TROILUS Hark! you are call'd: some say the Genius so Cries 'come' to him that instantly must die. Bid them have patience; she shall come anon. PANDARUS Where are my tears? rain, to lay this wind, or my heart will be blown up by the root. [Exit] CRESSIDA I must then to the Grecians? TROILUS No remedy. CRESSIDA A woful Cressid 'mongst the merry Greeks! When shall we see again? TROILUS Hear me, my love: be thou but true of heart,-- CRESSIDA I true! how now! what wicked deem is this? TROILUS Nay, we must use expostulation kindly, For it is parting from us: I speak not 'be thou true,' as fearing thee, For I will throw my glove to Death himself, That there's no maculation in thy heart: But 'be thou true,' say I, to fashion in My sequent protestation; be thou true, And I will see thee. CRESSIDA O, you shall be exposed, my lord, to dangers As infinite as imminent! but I'll be true. TROILUS And I'll grow friend with danger. Wear this sleeve. CRESSIDA And you this glove. When shall I see you? TROILUS I will corrupt the Grecian sentinels, To give thee nightly visitation. But yet be true. CRESSIDA O heavens! 'be true' again! TROILUS Hear while I speak it, love: The Grecian youths are full of quality; They're loving, well composed with gifts of nature, Flowing and swelling o'er with arts and exercise: How novelty may move, and parts with person, Alas, a kind of godly jealousy-- Which, I beseech you, call a virtuous sin-- Makes me afeard. CRESSIDA O heavens! you love me not. TROILUS Die I a villain, then! In this I do not call your faith in question So mainly as my merit: I cannot sing, Nor heel the high lavolt, nor sweeten talk, Nor play at subtle games; fair virtues all, To which the Grecians are most prompt and pregnant: But I can tell that in each grace of these There lurks a still and dumb-discoursive devil That tempts most cunningly: but be not tempted. CRESSIDA Do you think I will? TROILUS No. But something may be done that we will not: And sometimes we are devils to ourselves, When we will tempt the frailty of our powers, Presuming on their changeful potency. AENEAS [Within] Nay, good my lord,-- TROILUS Come, kiss; and let us part. PARIS [Within] Brother Troilus! TROILUS Good brother, come you hither; And bring AEneas and the Grecian with you. CRESSIDA My lord, will you be true? TROILUS Who, I? alas, it is my vice, my fault: Whiles others fish with craft for great opinion, I with great truth catch mere simplicity; Whilst some with cunning gild their copper crowns, With truth and plainness I do wear mine bare. Fear not my truth: the moral of my wit Is 'plain and true;' there's all the reach of it. [Enter AENEAS, PARIS, ANTENOR, DEIPHOBUS, and DIOMEDES] Welcome, Sir Diomed! here is the lady Which for Antenor we deliver you: At the port, lord, I'll give her to thy hand, And by the way possess thee what she is. Entreat her fair; and, by my soul, fair Greek, If e'er thou stand at mercy of my sword, Name Cressida and thy life shall be as safe As Priam is in Ilion. DIOMEDES Fair Lady Cressid, So please you, save the thanks this prince expects: The lustre in your eye, heaven in your cheek, Pleads your fair usage; and to Diomed You shall be mistress, and command him wholly. TROILUS Grecian, thou dost not use me courteously, To shame the zeal of my petition to thee In praising her: I tell thee, lord of Greece, She is as far high-soaring o'er thy praises As thou unworthy to be call'd her servant. I charge thee use her well, even for my charge; For, by the dreadful Pluto, if thou dost not, Though the great bulk Achilles be thy guard, I'll cut thy throat. DIOMEDES O, be not moved, Prince Troilus: Let me be privileged by my place and message, To be a speaker free; when I am hence I'll answer to my lust: and know you, lord, I'll nothing do on charge: to her own worth She shall be prized; but that you say 'be't so,' I'll speak it in my spirit and honour, 'no.' TROILUS Come, to the port. I'll tell thee, Diomed, This brave shall oft make thee to hide thy head. Lady, give me your hand, and, as we walk, To our own selves bend we our needful talk. [Exeunt TROILUS, CRESSIDA, and DIOMEDES] [Trumpet within] PARIS Hark! Hector's trumpet. AENEAS How have we spent this morning! The prince must think me tardy and remiss, That sore to ride before him to the field. PARIS 'Tis Troilus' fault: come, come, to field with him. DEIPHOBUS Let us make ready straight. AENEAS Yea, with a bridegroom's fresh alacrity, Let us address to tend on Hector's heels: The glory of our Troy doth this day lie On his fair worth and single chivalry. [Exeunt] TROILUS AND CRESSIDA ACT IV SCENE V The Grecian camp. Lists set out. [Enter AJAX, armed; AGAMEMNON, ACHILLES, PATROCLUS, MENELAUS, ULYSSES, NESTOR, and others] AGAMEMNON Here art thou in appointment fresh and fair, Anticipating time with starting courage. Give with thy trumpet a loud note to Troy, Thou dreadful Ajax; that the appalled air May pierce the head of the great combatant And hale him hither. AJAX Thou, trumpet, there's my purse. Now crack thy lungs, and split thy brazen pipe: Blow, villain, till thy sphered bias cheek Outswell the colic of puff'd Aquilon: Come, stretch thy chest and let thy eyes spout blood; Thou blow'st for Hector. [Trumpet sounds] ULYSSES No trumpet answers. ACHILLES 'Tis but early days. AGAMEMNON Is not yond Diomed, with Calchas' daughter? ULYSSES 'Tis he, I ken the manner of his gait; He rises on the toe: that spirit of his In aspiration lifts him from the earth. [Enter DIOMEDES, with CRESSIDA] AGAMEMNON Is this the Lady Cressid? DIOMEDES Even she. AGAMEMNON Most dearly welcome to the Greeks, sweet lady. NESTOR Our general doth salute you with a kiss. ULYSSES Yet is the kindness but particular; 'Twere better she were kiss'd in general. NESTOR And very courtly counsel: I'll begin. So much for Nestor. ACHILLES I'll take what winter from your lips, fair lady: Achilles bids you welcome. MENELAUS I had good argument for kissing once. PATROCLUS But that's no argument for kissing now; For this popp'd Paris in his hardiment, And parted thus you and your argument. ULYSSES O deadly gall, and theme of all our scorns! For which we lose our heads to gild his horns. PATROCLUS The first was Menelaus' kiss; this, mine: Patroclus kisses you. MENELAUS O, this is trim! PATROCLUS Paris and I kiss evermore for him. MENELAUS I'll have my kiss, sir. Lady, by your leave. CRESSIDA In kissing, do you render or receive? PATROCLUS Both take and give. CRESSIDA I'll make my match to live, The kiss you take is better than you give; Therefore no kiss. MENELAUS I'll give you boot, I'll give you three for one. CRESSIDA You're an odd man; give even or give none. MENELAUS An odd man, lady! every man is odd. CRESSIDA No, Paris is not; for you know 'tis true, That you are odd, and he is even with you. MENELAUS You fillip me o' the head. CRESSIDA No, I'll be sworn. ULYSSES It were no match, your nail against his horn. May I, sweet lady, beg a kiss of you? CRESSIDA You may. ULYSSES I do desire it. CRESSIDA Why, beg, then. ULYSSES Why then for Venus' sake, give me a kiss, When Helen is a maid again, and his. CRESSIDA I am your debtor, claim it when 'tis due. ULYSSES Never's my day, and then a kiss of you. DIOMEDES Lady, a word: I'll bring you to your father. [Exit with CRESSIDA] NESTOR A woman of quick sense. ULYSSES Fie, fie upon her! There's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip, Nay, her foot speaks; her wanton spirits look out At every joint and motive of her body. O, these encounterers, so glib of tongue, That give accosting welcome ere it comes, And wide unclasp the tables of their thoughts To every ticklish reader! set them down For sluttish spoils of opportunity And daughters of the game. [Trumpet within] ALL The Trojans' trumpet. AGAMEMNON Yonder comes the troop. [Enter HECTOR, armed; AENEAS, TROILUS, and other Trojans, with Attendants] AENEAS Hail, all you state of Greece! what shall be done To him that victory commands? or do you purpose A victor shall be known? will you the knights Shall to the edge of all extremity Pursue each other, or shall be divided By any voice or order of the field? Hector bade ask. AGAMEMNON Which way would Hector have it? AENEAS He cares not; he'll obey conditions. ACHILLES 'Tis done like Hector; but securely done, A little proudly, and great deal misprizing The knight opposed. AENEAS If not Achilles, sir, What is your name? ACHILLES If not Achilles, nothing. AENEAS Therefore Achilles: but, whate'er, know this: In the extremity of great and little, Valour and pride excel themselves in Hector; The one almost as infinite as all, The other blank as nothing. Weigh him well, And that which looks like pride is courtesy. This Ajax is half made of Hector's blood: In love whereof, half Hector stays at home; Half heart, half hand, half Hector comes to seek This blended knight, half Trojan and half Greek. ACHILLES A maiden battle, then? O, I perceive you. [Re-enter DIOMEDES] AGAMEMNON Here is Sir Diomed. Go, gentle knight, Stand by our Ajax: as you and Lord AEneas Consent upon the order of their fight, So be it; either to the uttermost, Or else a breath: the combatants being kin Half stints their strife before their strokes begin. [AJAX and HECTOR enter the lists] ULYSSES They are opposed already. AGAMEMNON What Trojan is that same that looks so heavy? ULYSSES The youngest son of Priam, a true knight, Not yet mature, yet matchless, firm of word, Speaking in deeds and deedless in his tongue; Not soon provoked nor being provoked soon calm'd: His heart and hand both open and both free; For what he has he gives, what thinks he shows; Yet gives he not till judgment guide his bounty, Nor dignifies an impure thought with breath; Manly as Hector, but more dangerous; For Hector in his blaze of wrath subscribes To tender objects, but he in heat of action Is more vindicative than jealous love: They call him Troilus, and on him erect A second hope, as fairly built as Hector. Thus says AEneas; one that knows the youth Even to his inches, and with private soul Did in great Ilion thus translate him to me. [Alarum. Hector and Ajax fight] AGAMEMNON They are in action. NESTOR Now, Ajax, hold thine own! TROILUS Hector, thou sleep'st; Awake thee! AGAMEMNON His blows are well disposed: there, Ajax! DIOMEDES You must no more. [Trumpets cease] AENEAS Princes, enough, so please you. AJAX I am not warm yet; let us fight again. DIOMEDES As Hector pleases. HECTOR Why, then will I no more: Thou art, great lord, my father's sister's son, A cousin-german to great Priam's seed; The obligation of our blood forbids A gory emulation 'twixt us twain: Were thy commixtion Greek and Trojan so That thou couldst say 'This hand is Grecian all, And this is Trojan; the sinews of this leg All Greek, and this all Troy; my mother's blood Runs on the dexter cheek, and this sinister Bounds in my father's;' by Jove multipotent, Thou shouldst not bear from me a Greekish member Wherein my sword had not impressure made Of our rank feud: but the just gods gainsay That any drop thou borrow'dst from thy mother, My sacred aunt, should by my mortal sword Be drain'd! Let me embrace thee, Ajax: By him that thunders, thou hast lusty arms; Hector would have them fall upon him thus: Cousin, all honour to thee! AJAX I thank thee, Hector Thou art too gentle and too free a man: I came to kill thee, cousin, and bear hence A great addition earned in thy death. HECTOR Not Neoptolemus so mirable, On whose bright crest Fame with her loud'st Oyes Cries 'This is he,' could promise to himself A thought of added honour torn from Hector. AENEAS There is expectance here from both the sides, What further you will do. HECTOR We'll answer it; The issue is embracement: Ajax, farewell. AJAX If I might in entreaties find success-- As seld I have the chance--I would desire My famous cousin to our Grecian tents. DIOMEDES 'Tis Agamemnon's wish, and great Achilles Doth long to see unarm'd the valiant Hector. HECTOR AEneas, call my brother Troilus to me, And signify this loving interview To the expecters of our Trojan part; Desire them home. Give me thy hand, my cousin; I will go eat with thee and see your knights. AJAX Great Agamemnon comes to meet us here. HECTOR The worthiest of them tell me name by name; But for Achilles, mine own searching eyes Shall find him by his large and portly size. AGAMEMNON Worthy of arms! as welcome as to one That would be rid of such an enemy; But that's no welcome: understand more clear, What's past and what's to come is strew'd with husks And formless ruin of oblivion; But in this extant moment, faith and troth, Strain'd purely from all hollow bias-drawing, Bids thee, with most divine integrity, From heart of very heart, great Hector, welcome. HECTOR I thank thee, most imperious Agamemnon. AGAMEMNON [To TROILUS] My well-famed lord of Troy, no less to you. MENELAUS Let me confirm my princely brother's greeting: You brace of warlike brothers, welcome hither. HECTOR Who must we answer? AENEAS The noble Menelaus. HECTOR O, you, my lord? by Mars his gauntlet, thanks! Mock not, that I affect the untraded oath; Your quondam wife swears still by Venus' glove: She's well, but bade me not commend her to you. MENELAUS Name her not now, sir; she's a deadly theme. HECTOR O, pardon; I offend. NESTOR I have, thou gallant Trojan, seen thee oft Labouring for destiny make cruel way Through ranks of Greekish youth, and I have seen thee, As hot as Perseus, spur thy Phrygian steed, Despising many forfeits and subduements, When thou hast hung thy advanced sword i' the air, Not letting it decline on the declined, That I have said to some my standers by 'Lo, Jupiter is yonder, dealing life!' And I have seen thee pause and take thy breath, When that a ring of Greeks have hemm'd thee in, Like an Olympian wrestling: this have I seen; But this thy countenance, still lock'd in steel, I never saw till now. I knew thy grandsire, And once fought with him: he was a soldier good; But, by great Mars, the captain of us all, Never saw like thee. Let an old man embrace thee; And, worthy warrior, welcome to our tents. AENEAS 'Tis the old Nestor. HECTOR Let me embrace thee, good old chronicle, That hast so long walk'd hand in hand with time: Most reverend Nestor, I am glad to clasp thee. NESTOR I would my arms could match thee in contention, As they contend with thee in courtesy. HECTOR I would they could. NESTOR Ha! By this white beard, I'ld fight with thee to-morrow. Well, welcome, welcome! I have seen the time. ULYSSES I wonder now how yonder city stands When we have here her base and pillar by us. HECTOR I know your favour, Lord Ulysses, well. Ah, sir, there's many a Greek and Trojan dead, Since first I saw yourself and Diomed In Ilion, on your Greekish embassy. ULYSSES Sir, I foretold you then what would ensue: My prophecy is but half his journey yet; For yonder walls, that pertly front your town, Yond towers, whose wanton tops do buss the clouds, Must kiss their own feet. HECTOR I must not believe you: There they stand yet, and modestly I think, The fall of every Phrygian stone will cost A drop of Grecian blood: the end crowns all, And that old common arbitrator, Time, Will one day end it. ULYSSES So to him we leave it. Most gentle and most valiant Hector, welcome: After the general, I beseech you next To feast with me and see me at my tent. ACHILLES I shall forestall thee, Lord Ulysses, thou! Now, Hector, I have fed mine eyes on thee; I have with exact view perused thee, Hector, And quoted joint by joint. HECTOR Is this Achilles? ACHILLES I am Achilles. HECTOR Stand fair, I pray thee: let me look on thee. ACHILLES Behold thy fill. HECTOR Nay, I have done already. ACHILLES Thou art too brief: I will the second time, As I would buy thee, view thee limb by limb. HECTOR O, like a book of sport thou'lt read me o'er; But there's more in me than thou understand'st. Why dost thou so oppress me with thine eye? ACHILLES Tell me, you heavens, in which part of his body Shall I destroy him? whether there, or there, or there? That I may give the local wound a name And make distinct the very breach whereout Hector's great spirit flew: answer me, heavens! HECTOR It would discredit the blest gods, proud man, To answer such a question: stand again: Think'st thou to catch my life so pleasantly As to prenominate in nice conjecture Where thou wilt hit me dead? ACHILLES I tell thee, yea. HECTOR Wert thou an oracle to tell me so, I'd not believe thee. Henceforth guard thee well; For I'll not kill thee there, nor there, nor there; But, by the forge that stithied Mars his helm, I'll kill thee every where, yea, o'er and o'er. You wisest Grecians, pardon me this brag; His insolence draws folly from my lips; But I'll endeavour deeds to match these words, Or may I never-- AJAX Do not chafe thee, cousin: And you, Achilles, let these threats alone, Till accident or purpose bring you to't: You may have every day enough of Hector If you have stomach; the general state, I fear, Can scarce entreat you to be odd with him. HECTOR I pray you, let us see you in the field: We have had pelting wars, since you refused The Grecians' cause. ACHILLES Dost thou entreat me, Hector? To-morrow do I meet thee, fell as death; To-night all friends. HECTOR Thy hand upon that match. AGAMEMNON First, all you peers of Greece, go to my tent; There in the full convive we: afterwards, As Hector's leisure and your bounties shall Concur together, severally entreat him. Beat loud the tabourines, let the trumpets blow, That this great soldier may his welcome know. [Exeunt all except TROILUS and ULYSSES] TROILUS My Lord Ulysses, tell me, I beseech you, In what place of the field doth Calchas keep? ULYSSES At Menelaus' tent, most princely Troilus: There Diomed doth feast with him to-night; Who neither looks upon the heaven nor earth, But gives all gaze and bent of amorous view On the fair Cressid. TROILUS Shall sweet lord, be bound to you so much, After we part from Agamemnon's tent, To bring me thither? ULYSSES You shall command me, sir. As gentle tell me, of what honour was This Cressida in Troy? Had she no lover there That wails her absence? TROILUS O, sir, to such as boasting show their scars A mock is due. Will you walk on, my lord? She was beloved, she loved; she is, and doth: But still sweet love is food for fortune's tooth. [Exeunt] TROILUS AND CRESSIDA ACT V SCENE I The Grecian camp. Before Achilles' tent. [Enter ACHILLES and PATROCLUS] ACHILLES I'll heat his blood with Greekish wine to-night, Which with my scimitar I'll cool to-morrow. Patroclus, let us feast him to the height. PATROCLUS Here comes Thersites. [Enter THERSITES] ACHILLES How now, thou core of envy! Thou crusty batch of nature, what's the news? THERSITES Why, thou picture of what thou seemest, and idol of idiot worshippers, here's a letter for thee. ACHILLES From whence, fragment? THERSITES Why, thou full dish of fool, from Troy. PATROCLUS Who keeps the tent now? THERSITES The surgeon's box, or the patient's wound. PATROCLUS Well said, adversity! and what need these tricks? THERSITES Prithee, be silent, boy; I profit not by thy talk: thou art thought to be Achilles' male varlet. PATROCLUS Male varlet, you rogue! what's that? THERSITES Why, his masculine whore. Now, the rotten diseases of the south, the guts-griping, ruptures, catarrhs, loads o' gravel i' the back, lethargies, cold palsies, raw eyes, dirt-rotten livers, wheezing lungs, bladders full of imposthume, sciaticas, limekilns i' the palm, incurable bone-ache, and the rivelled fee-simple of the tetter, take and take again such preposterous discoveries! PATROCLUS Why thou damnable box of envy, thou, what meanest thou to curse thus? THERSITES Do I curse thee? PATROCLUS Why no, you ruinous butt, you whoreson indistinguishable cur, no. THERSITES No! why art thou then exasperate, thou idle immaterial skein of sleave-silk, thou green sarcenet flap for a sore eye, thou tassel of a prodigal's purse, thou? Ah, how the poor world is pestered with such waterflies, diminutives of nature! PATROCLUS Out, gall! THERSITES Finch-egg! ACHILLES My sweet Patroclus, I am thwarted quite From my great purpose in to-morrow's battle. Here is a letter from Queen Hecuba, A token from her daughter, my fair love, Both taxing me and gaging me to keep An oath that I have sworn. I will not break it: Fall Greeks; fail fame; honour or go or stay; My major vow lies here, this I'll obey. Come, come, Thersites, help to trim my tent: This night in banqueting must all be spent. Away, Patroclus! [Exeunt ACHILLES and PATROCLUS] THERSITES With too much blood and too little brain, these two may run mad; but, if with too much brain and too little blood they do, I'll be a curer of madmen. Here's Agamemnon, an honest fellow enough and one that loves quails; but he has not so much brain as earwax: and the goodly transformation of Jupiter there, his brother, the bull,--the primitive statue, and oblique memorial of cuckolds; a thrifty shoeing-horn in a chain, hanging at his brother's leg,--to what form but that he is, should wit larded with malice and malice forced with wit turn him to? To an ass, were nothing; he is both ass and ox: to an ox, were nothing; he is both ox and ass. To be a dog, a mule, a cat, a fitchew, a toad, a lizard, an owl, a puttock, or a herring without a roe, I would not care; but to be Menelaus, I would conspire against destiny. Ask me not, what I would be, if I were not Thersites; for I care not to be the louse of a lazar, so I were not Menelaus! Hey-day! spirits and fires! [Enter HECTOR, TROILUS, AJAX, AGAMEMNON, ULYSSES, NESTOR, MENELAUS, and DIOMEDES, with lights] AGAMEMNON We go wrong, we go wrong. AJAX No, yonder 'tis; There, where we see the lights. HECTOR I trouble you. AJAX No, not a whit. ULYSSES Here comes himself to guide you. [Re-enter ACHILLES] ACHILLES Welcome, brave Hector; welcome, princes all. AGAMEMNON So now, fair prince of Troy, I bid good night. Ajax commands the guard to tend on you. HECTOR Thanks and good night to the Greeks' general. MENELAUS Good night, my lord. HECTOR Good night, sweet lord Menelaus. THERSITES Sweet draught: 'sweet' quoth 'a! sweet sink, sweet sewer. ACHILLES Good night and welcome, both at once, to those That go or tarry. AGAMEMNON Good night. [Exeunt AGAMEMNON and MENELAUS] ACHILLES Old Nestor tarries; and you too, Diomed, Keep Hector company an hour or two. DIOMEDES I cannot, lord; I have important business, The tide whereof is now. Good night, great Hector. HECTOR Give me your hand. ULYSSES [Aside to TROILUS] Follow his torch; he goes to Calchas' tent: I'll keep you company. TROILUS Sweet sir, you honour me. HECTOR And so, good night. [Exit DIOMEDES; ULYSSES and TROILUS following] ACHILLES Come, come, enter my tent. [Exeunt ACHILLES, HECTOR, AJAX, and NESTOR] THERSITES That same Diomed's a false-hearted rogue, a most unjust knave; I will no more trust him when he leers than I will a serpent when he hisses: he will spend his mouth, and promise, like Brabbler the hound: but when he performs, astronomers foretell it; it is prodigious, there will come some change; the sun borrows of the moon, when Diomed keeps his word. I will rather leave to see Hector, than not to dog him: they say he keeps a Trojan drab, and uses the traitor Calchas' tent: I'll after. Nothing but lechery! all incontinent varlets! [Exit] TROILUS AND CRESSIDA ACT V SCENE II The same. Before Calchas' tent. [Enter DIOMEDES] DIOMEDES What, are you up here, ho? speak. CALCHAS [Within] Who calls? DIOMEDES Calchas, I think. Where's your daughter? CALCHAS [Within] She comes to you. [Enter TROILUS and ULYSSES, at a distance; after them, THERSITES] ULYSSES Stand where the torch may not discover us. [Enter CRESSIDA] TROILUS Cressid comes forth to him. DIOMEDES How now, my charge! CRESSIDA Now, my sweet guardian! Hark, a word with you. [Whispers] TROILUS Yea, so familiar! ULYSSES She will sing any man at first sight. THERSITES And any man may sing her, if he can take her cliff; she's noted. DIOMEDES Will you remember? CRESSIDA Remember! yes. DIOMEDES Nay, but do, then; And let your mind be coupled with your words. TROILUS What should she remember? ULYSSES List. CRESSIDA Sweet honey Greek, tempt me no more to folly. THERSITES Roguery! DIOMEDES Nay, then,-- CRESSIDA I'll tell you what,-- DIOMEDES Foh, foh! come, tell a pin: you are forsworn. CRESSIDA In faith, I cannot: what would you have me do? THERSITES A juggling trick,--to be secretly open. DIOMEDES What did you swear you would bestow on me? CRESSIDA I prithee, do not hold me to mine oath; Bid me do any thing but that, sweet Greek. DIOMEDES Good night. TROILUS Hold, patience! ULYSSES How now, Trojan! CRESSIDA Diomed,-- DIOMEDES No, no, good night: I'll be your fool no more. TROILUS Thy better must. CRESSIDA Hark, one word in your ear. TROILUS O plague and madness! ULYSSES You are moved, prince; let us depart, I pray you, Lest your displeasure should enlarge itself To wrathful terms: this place is dangerous; The time right deadly; I beseech you, go. TROILUS Behold, I pray you! ULYSSES Nay, good my lord, go off: You flow to great distraction; come, my lord. TROILUS I pray thee, stay. ULYSSES You have not patience; come. TROILUS I pray you, stay; by hell and all hell's torments I will not speak a word! DIOMEDES And so, good night. CRESSIDA Nay, but you part in anger. TROILUS Doth that grieve thee? O wither'd truth! ULYSSES Why, how now, lord! TROILUS By Jove, I will be patient. CRESSIDA Guardian!--why, Greek! DIOMEDES Foh, foh! adieu; you palter. CRESSIDA In faith, I do not: come hither once again. ULYSSES You shake, my lord, at something: will you go? You will break out. TROILUS She strokes his cheek! ULYSSES Come, come. TROILUS Nay, stay; by Jove, I will not speak a word: There is between my will and all offences A guard of patience: stay a little while. THERSITES How the devil Luxury, with his fat rump and potato-finger, tickles these together! Fry, lechery, fry! DIOMEDES But will you, then? CRESSIDA In faith, I will, la; never trust me else. DIOMEDES Give me some token for the surety of it. CRESSIDA I'll fetch you one. [Exit] ULYSSES You have sworn patience. TROILUS Fear me not, sweet lord; I will not be myself, nor have cognition Of what I feel: I am all patience. [Re-enter CRESSIDA] THERSITES Now the pledge; now, now, now! CRESSIDA Here, Diomed, keep this sleeve. TROILUS O beauty! where is thy faith? ULYSSES My lord,-- TROILUS I will be patient; outwardly I will. CRESSIDA You look upon that sleeve; behold it well. He loved me--O false wench!--Give't me again. DIOMEDES Whose was't? CRESSIDA It is no matter, now I have't again. I will not meet with you to-morrow night: I prithee, Diomed, visit me no more. THERSITES Now she sharpens: well said, whetstone! DIOMEDES I shall have it. CRESSIDA What, this? DIOMEDES Ay, that. CRESSIDA O, all you gods! O pretty, pretty pledge! Thy master now lies thinking in his bed Of thee and me, and sighs, and takes my glove, And gives memorial dainty kisses to it, As I kiss thee. Nay, do not snatch it from me; He that takes that doth take my heart withal. DIOMEDES I had your heart before, this follows it. TROILUS I did swear patience. CRESSIDA You shall not have it, Diomed; faith, you shall not; I'll give you something else. DIOMEDES I will have this: whose was it? CRESSIDA It is no matter. DIOMEDES Come, tell me whose it was. CRESSIDA 'Twas one's that loved me better than you will. But, now you have it, take it. DIOMEDES Whose was it? CRESSIDA By all Diana's waiting-women yond, And by herself, I will not tell you whose. DIOMEDES To-morrow will I wear it on my helm, And grieve his spirit that dares not challenge it. TROILUS Wert thou the devil, and worest it on thy horn, It should be challenged. CRESSIDA Well, well, 'tis done, 'tis past: and yet it is not; I will not keep my word. DIOMEDES Why, then, farewell; Thou never shalt mock Diomed again. CRESSIDA You shall not go: one cannot speak a word, But it straight starts you. DIOMEDES I do not like this fooling. THERSITES Nor I, by Pluto: but that that likes not you pleases me best. DIOMEDES What, shall I come? the hour? CRESSIDA Ay, come:--O Jove!--do come:--I shall be plagued. DIOMEDES Farewell till then. CRESSIDA Good night: I prithee, come. [Exit DIOMEDES] Troilus, farewell! one eye yet looks on thee But with my heart the other eye doth see. Ah, poor our sex! this fault in us I find, The error of our eye directs our mind: What error leads must err; O, then conclude Minds sway'd by eyes are full of turpitude. [Exit] THERSITES A proof of strength she could not publish more, Unless she said ' My mind is now turn'd whore.' ULYSSES All's done, my lord. TROILUS It is. ULYSSES Why stay we, then? TROILUS To make a recordation to my soul Of every syllable that here was spoke. But if I tell how these two did co-act, Shall I not lie in publishing a truth? Sith yet there is a credence in my heart, An esperance so obstinately strong, That doth invert the attest of eyes and ears, As if those organs had deceptious functions, Created only to calumniate. Was Cressid here? ULYSSES I cannot conjure, Trojan. TROILUS She was not, sure. ULYSSES Most sure she was. TROILUS Why, my negation hath no taste of madness. ULYSSES Nor mine, my lord: Cressid was here but now. TROILUS Let it not be believed for womanhood! Think, we had mothers; do not give advantage To stubborn critics, apt, without a theme, For depravation, to square the general sex By Cressid's rule: rather think this not Cressid. ULYSSES What hath she done, prince, that can soil our mothers? TROILUS Nothing at all, unless that this were she. THERSITES Will he swagger himself out on's own eyes? TROILUS This she? no, this is Diomed's Cressida: If beauty have a soul, this is not she; If souls guide vows, if vows be sanctimonies, If sanctimony be the gods' delight, If there be rule in unity itself, This is not she. O madness of discourse, That cause sets up with and against itself! Bi-fold authority! where reason can revolt Without perdition, and loss assume all reason Without revolt: this is, and is not, Cressid. Within my soul there doth conduce a fight Of this strange nature that a thing inseparate Divides more wider than the sky and earth, And yet the spacious breadth of this division Admits no orifex for a point as subtle As Ariachne's broken woof to enter. Instance, O instance! strong as Pluto's gates; Cressid is mine, tied with the bonds of heaven: Instance, O instance! strong as heaven itself; The bonds of heaven are slipp'd, dissolved, and loosed; And with another knot, five-finger-tied, The fractions of her faith, orts of her love, The fragments, scraps, the bits and greasy relics Of her o'er-eaten faith, are bound to Diomed. ULYSSES May worthy Troilus be half attach'd With that which here his passion doth express? TROILUS Ay, Greek; and that shall be divulged well In characters as red as Mars his heart Inflamed with Venus: never did young man fancy With so eternal and so fix'd a soul. Hark, Greek: as much as I do Cressid love, So much by weight hate I her Diomed: That sleeve is mine that he'll bear on his helm; Were it a casque composed by Vulcan's skill, My sword should bite it: not the dreadful spout Which shipmen do the hurricano call, Constringed in mass by the almighty sun, Shall dizzy with more clamour Neptune's ear In his descent than shall my prompted sword Falling on Diomed. THERSITES He'll tickle it for his concupy. TROILUS O Cressid! O false Cressid! false, false, false! Let all untruths stand by thy stained name, And they'll seem glorious. ULYSSES O, contain yourself Your passion draws ears hither. [Enter AENEAS] AENEAS I have been seeking you this hour, my lord: Hector, by this, is arming him in Troy; Ajax, your guard, stays to conduct you home. TROILUS Have with you, prince. My courteous lord, adieu. Farewell, revolted fair! and, Diomed, Stand fast, and wear a castle on thy head! ULYSSES I'll bring you to the gates. TROILUS Accept distracted thanks. [Exeunt TROILUS, AENEAS, and ULYSSES] THERSITES Would I could meet that rogue Diomed! I would croak like a raven; I would bode, I would bode. Patroclus will give me any thing for the intelligence of this whore: the parrot will not do more for an almond than he for a commodious drab. Lechery, lechery; still, wars and lechery; nothing else holds fashion: a burning devil take them! [Exit] TROILUS AND CRESSIDA ACT V SCENE III Troy. Before Priam's palace. [Enter HECTOR and ANDROMACHE] ANDROMACHE When was my lord so much ungently temper'd, To stop his ears against admonishment? Unarm, unarm, and do not fight to-day. HECTOR You train me to offend you; get you in: By all the everlasting gods, I'll go! ANDROMACHE My dreams will, sure, prove ominous to the day. HECTOR No more, I say. [Enter CASSANDRA] CASSANDRA Where is my brother Hector? ANDROMACHE Here, sister; arm'd, and bloody in intent. Consort with me in loud and dear petition, Pursue we him on knees; for I have dream'd Of bloody turbulence, and this whole night Hath nothing been but shapes and forms of slaughter. CASSANDRA O, 'tis true. HECTOR Ho! bid my trumpet sound! CASSANDRA No notes of sally, for the heavens, sweet brother. HECTOR Be gone, I say: the gods have heard me swear. CASSANDRA The gods are deaf to hot and peevish vows: They are polluted offerings, more abhorr'd Than spotted livers in the sacrifice. ANDROMACHE O, be persuaded! do not count it holy To hurt by being just: it is as lawful, For we would give much, to use violent thefts, And rob in the behalf of charity. CASSANDRA It is the purpose that makes strong the vow; But vows to every purpose must not hold: Unarm, sweet Hector. HECTOR Hold you still, I say; Mine honour keeps the weather of my fate: Lie every man holds dear; but the brave man Holds honour far more precious-dear than life. [Enter TROILUS] How now, young man! mean'st thou to fight to-day? ANDROMACHE Cassandra, call my father to persuade. [Exit CASSANDRA] HECTOR No, faith, young Troilus; doff thy harness, youth; I am to-day i' the vein of chivalry: Let grow thy sinews till their knots be strong, And tempt not yet the brushes of the war. Unarm thee, go, and doubt thou not, brave boy, I'll stand to-day for thee and me and Troy. TROILUS Brother, you have a vice of mercy in you, Which better fits a lion than a man. HECTOR What vice is that, good Troilus? chide me for it. TROILUS When many times the captive Grecian falls, Even in the fan and wind of your fair sword, You bid them rise, and live. HECTOR O,'tis fair play. TROILUS Fool's play, by heaven, Hector. HECTOR How now! how now! TROILUS For the love of all the gods, Let's leave the hermit pity with our mothers, And when we have our armours buckled on, The venom'd vengeance ride upon our swords, Spur them to ruthful work, rein them from ruth. HECTOR Fie, savage, fie! TROILUS Hector, then 'tis wars. HECTOR Troilus, I would not have you fight to-day. TROILUS Who should withhold me? Not fate, obedience, nor the hand of Mars Beckoning with fiery truncheon my retire; Not Priamus and Hecuba on knees, Their eyes o'ergalled with recourse of tears; Not you, my brother, with your true sword drawn, Opposed to hinder me, should stop my way, But by my ruin. [Re-enter CASSANDRA, with PRIAM] CASSANDRA Lay hold upon him, Priam, hold him fast: He is thy crutch; now if thou lose thy stay, Thou on him leaning, and all Troy on thee, Fall all together. PRIAM Come, Hector, come, go back: Thy wife hath dream'd; thy mother hath had visions; Cassandra doth foresee; and I myself Am like a prophet suddenly enrapt To tell thee that this day is ominous: Therefore, come back. HECTOR AEneas is a-field; And I do stand engaged to many Greeks, Even in the faith of valour, to appear This morning to them. PRIAM Ay, but thou shalt not go. HECTOR I must not break my faith. You know me dutiful; therefore, dear sir, Let me not shame respect; but give me leave To take that course by your consent and voice, Which you do here forbid me, royal Priam. CASSANDRA O Priam, yield not to him! ANDROMACHE Do not, dear father. HECTOR Andromache, I am offended with you: Upon the love you bear me, get you in. [Exit ANDROMACHE] TROILUS This foolish, dreaming, superstitious girl Makes all these bodements. CASSANDRA O, farewell, dear Hector! Look, how thou diest! look, how thy eye turns pale! Look, how thy wounds do bleed at many vents! Hark, how Troy roars! how Hecuba cries out! How poor Andromache shrills her dolours forth! Behold, distraction, frenzy and amazement, Like witless antics, one another meet, And all cry, Hector! Hector's dead! O Hector! TROILUS Away! away! CASSANDRA Farewell: yet, soft! Hector! take my leave: Thou dost thyself and all our Troy deceive. [Exit] HECTOR You are amazed, my liege, at her exclaim: Go in and cheer the town: we'll forth and fight, Do deeds worth praise and tell you them at night. PRIAM Farewell: the gods with safety stand about thee! [Exeunt severally PRIAM and HECTOR. Alarums] TROILUS They are at it, hark! Proud Diomed, believe, I come to lose my arm, or win my sleeve. [Enter PANDARUS] PANDARUS Do you hear, my lord? do you hear? TROILUS What now? PANDARUS Here's a letter come from yond poor girl. TROILUS Let me read. PANDARUS A whoreson tisick, a whoreson rascally tisick so troubles me, and the foolish fortune of this girl; and what one thing, what another, that I shall leave you one o' these days: and I have a rheum in mine eyes too, and such an ache in my bones that, unless a man were cursed, I cannot tell what to think on't. What says she there? TROILUS Words, words, mere words, no matter from the heart: The effect doth operate another way. [Tearing the letter] Go, wind, to wind, there turn and change together. My love with words and errors still she feeds; But edifies another with her deeds. [Exeunt severally] TROILUS AND CRESSIDA ACT V SCENE IV Plains between Troy and the Grecian camp. [Alarums: excursions. Enter THERSITES] THERSITES Now they are clapper-clawing one another; I'll go look on. That dissembling abominable varlets Diomed, has got that same scurvy doting foolish young knave's sleeve of Troy there in his helm: I would fain see them meet; that that same young Trojan ass, that loves the whore there, might send that Greekish whore-masterly villain, with the sleeve, back to the dissembling luxurious drab, of a sleeveless errand. O' the t'other side, the policy of those crafty swearing rascals, that stale old mouse-eaten dry cheese, Nestor, and that same dog-fox, Ulysses, is not proved worthy a blackberry: they set me up, in policy, that mongrel cur, Ajax, against that dog of as bad a kind, Achilles: and now is the cur Ajax prouder than the cur Achilles, and will not arm to-day; whereupon the Grecians begin to proclaim barbarism, and policy grows into an ill opinion. Soft! here comes sleeve, and t'other. [Enter DIOMEDES, TROILUS following] TROILUS Fly not; for shouldst thou take the river Styx, I would swim after. DIOMEDES Thou dost miscall retire: I do not fly, but advantageous care Withdrew me from the odds of multitude: Have at thee! THERSITES Hold thy whore, Grecian!--now for thy whore, Trojan!--now the sleeve, now the sleeve! [Exeunt TROILUS and DIOMEDES, fighting] [Enter HECTOR] HECTOR What art thou, Greek? art thou for Hector's match? Art thou of blood and honour? THERSITES No, no, I am a rascal; a scurvy railing knave: a very filthy rogue. HECTOR I do believe thee: live. [Exit] THERSITES God-a-mercy, that thou wilt believe me; but a plague break thy neck for frightening me! What's become of the wenching rogues? I think they have swallowed one another: I would laugh at that miracle: yet, in a sort, lechery eats itself. I'll seek them. [Exit] TROILUS AND CRESSIDA ACT V SCENE V Another part of the plains. [Enter DIOMEDES and a Servant] DIOMEDES Go, go, my servant, take thou Troilus' horse; Present the fair steed to my lady Cressid: Fellow, commend my service to her beauty; Tell her I have chastised the amorous Trojan, And am her knight by proof. Servant I go, my lord. [Exit] [Enter AGAMEMNON] AGAMEMNON Renew, renew! The fierce Polydamas Hath beat down Menon: bastard Margarelon Hath Doreus prisoner, And stands colossus-wise, waving his beam, Upon the pashed corses of the kings Epistrophus and Cedius: Polyxenes is slain, Amphimachus and Thoas deadly hurt, Patroclus ta'en or slain, and Palamedes Sore hurt and bruised: the dreadful Sagittary Appals our numbers: haste we, Diomed, To reinforcement, or we perish all. [Enter NESTOR] NESTOR Go, bear Patroclus' body to Achilles; And bid the snail-paced Ajax arm for shame. There is a thousand Hectors in the field: Now here he fights on Galathe his horse, And there lacks work; anon he's there afoot, And there they fly or die, like scaled sculls Before the belching whale; then is he yonder, And there the strawy Greeks, ripe for his edge, Fall down before him, like the mower's swath: Here, there, and every where, he leaves and takes, Dexterity so obeying appetite That what he will he does, and does so much That proof is call'd impossibility. [Enter ULYSSES] ULYSSES O, courage, courage, princes! great Achilles Is arming, weeping, cursing, vowing vengeance: Patroclus' wounds have roused his drowsy blood, Together with his mangled Myrmidons, That noseless, handless, hack'd and chipp'd, come to him, Crying on Hector. Ajax hath lost a friend And foams at mouth, and he is arm'd and at it, Roaring for Troilus, who hath done to-day Mad and fantastic execution, Engaging and redeeming of himself With such a careless force and forceless care As if that luck, in very spite of cunning, Bade him win all. [Enter AJAX] AJAX Troilus! thou coward Troilus! [Exit] DIOMEDES Ay, there, there. NESTOR So, so, we draw together. [Enter ACHILLES] ACHILLES Where is this Hector? Come, come, thou boy-queller, show thy face; Know what it is to meet Achilles angry: Hector? where's Hector? I will none but Hector. [Exeunt] TROILUS AND CRESSIDA ACT V SCENE VI Another part of the plains. [Enter AJAX] AJAX Troilus, thou coward Troilus, show thy head! [Enter DIOMEDES] DIOMEDES Troilus, I say! where's Troilus? AJAX What wouldst thou? DIOMEDES I would correct him. AJAX Were I the general, thou shouldst have my office Ere that correction. Troilus, I say! what, Troilus! [Enter TROILUS] TROILUS O traitor Diomed! turn thy false face, thou traitor, And pay thy life thou owest me for my horse! DIOMEDES Ha, art thou there? AJAX I'll fight with him alone: stand, Diomed. DIOMEDES He is my prize; I will not look upon. TROILUS Come, both you cogging Greeks; have at you both! [Exeunt, fighting] [Enter HECTOR] HECTOR Yea, Troilus? O, well fought, my youngest brother! [Enter ACHILLES] ACHILLES Now do I see thee, ha! have at thee, Hector! HECTOR Pause, if thou wilt. ACHILLES I do disdain thy courtesy, proud Trojan: Be happy that my arms are out of use: My rest and negligence befriends thee now, But thou anon shalt hear of me again; Till when, go seek thy fortune. [Exit] HECTOR Fare thee well: I would have been much more a fresher man, Had I expected thee. How now, my brother! [Re-enter TROILUS] TROILUS Ajax hath ta'en AEneas: shall it be? No, by the flame of yonder glorious heaven, He shall not carry him: I'll be ta'en too, Or bring him off: fate, hear me what I say! I reck not though I end my life to-day. [Exit] [Enter one in sumptuous armour] HECTOR Stand, stand, thou Greek; thou art a goodly mark: No? wilt thou not? I like thy armour well; I'll frush it and unlock the rivets all, But I'll be master of it: wilt thou not, beast, abide? Why, then fly on, I'll hunt thee for thy hide. [Exeunt] TROILUS AND CRESSIDA ACT V SCENE VII Another part of the plains. [Enter ACHILLES, with Myrmidons] ACHILLES Come here about me, you my Myrmidons; Mark what I say. Attend me where I wheel: Strike not a stroke, but keep yourselves in breath: And when I have the bloody Hector found, Empale him with your weapons round about; In fellest manner execute your aims. Follow me, sirs, and my proceedings eye: It is decreed Hector the great must die. [Exeunt] [Enter MENELAUS and PARIS, fighting: then THERSITES] THERSITES The cuckold and the cuckold-maker are at it. Now, bull! now, dog! 'Loo, Paris, 'loo! now my double- henned sparrow! 'loo, Paris, 'loo! The bull has the game: ware horns, ho! [Exeunt PARIS and MENELAUS] [Enter MARGARELON] MARGARELON Turn, slave, and fight. THERSITES What art thou? MARGARELON A bastard son of Priam's. THERSITES I am a bastard too; I love bastards: I am a bastard begot, bastard instructed, bastard in mind, bastard in valour, in every thing illegitimate. One bear will not bite another, and wherefore should one bastard? Take heed, the quarrel's most ominous to us: if the son of a whore fight for a whore, he tempts judgment: farewell, bastard. [Exit] MARGARELON The devil take thee, coward! [Exit] TROILUS AND CRESSIDA ACT V SCENE VIII Another part of the plains. [Enter HECTOR] HECTOR Most putrefied core, so fair without, Thy goodly armour thus hath cost thy life. Now is my day's work done; I'll take good breath: Rest, sword; thou hast thy fill of blood and death. [Puts off his helmet and hangs his shield behind him] [Enter ACHILLES and Myrmidons] ACHILLES Look, Hector, how the sun begins to set; How ugly night comes breathing at his heels: Even with the vail and darking of the sun, To close the day up, Hector's life is done. HECTOR I am unarm'd; forego this vantage, Greek. ACHILLES Strike, fellows, strike; this is the man I seek. [HECTOR falls] So, Ilion, fall thou next! now, Troy, sink down! Here lies thy heart, thy sinews, and thy bone. On, Myrmidons, and cry you all amain, 'Achilles hath the mighty Hector slain.' [A retreat sounded] Hark! a retire upon our Grecian part. MYRMIDONS The Trojan trumpets sound the like, my lord. ACHILLES The dragon wing of night o'erspreads the earth, And, stickler-like, the armies separates. My half-supp'd sword, that frankly would have fed, Pleased with this dainty bait, thus goes to bed. [Sheathes his sword] Come, tie his body to my horse's tail; Along the field I will the Trojan trail. [Exeunt] TROILUS AND CRESSIDA ACT V SCENE IX Another part of the plains. [Enter AGAMEMNON, AJAX, MENELAUS, NESTOR, DIOMEDES, and others, marching. Shouts within] AGAMEMNON Hark! hark! what shout is that? NESTOR Peace, drums! [Within] Achilles! Achilles! Hector's slain! Achilles. DIOMEDES The bruit is, Hector's slain, and by Achilles. AJAX If it be so, yet bragless let it be; Great Hector was a man as good as he. AGAMEMNON March patiently along: let one be sent To pray Achilles see us at our tent. If in his death the gods have us befriended, Great Troy is ours, and our sharp wars are ended. [Exeunt, marching] TROILUS AND CRESSIDA ACT V SCENE X Another part of the plains. [Enter AENEAS and Trojans] AENEAS Stand, ho! yet are we masters of the field: Never go home; here starve we out the night. [Enter TROILUS] TROILUS Hector is slain. ALL Hector! the gods forbid! TROILUS He's dead; and at the murderer's horse's tail, In beastly sort, dragg'd through the shameful field. Frown on, you heavens, effect your rage with speed! Sit, gods, upon your thrones, and smile at Troy! I say, at once let your brief plagues be mercy, And linger not our sure destructions on! AENEAS My lord, you do discomfort all the host! TROILUS You understand me not that tell me so: I do not speak of flight, of fear, of death, But dare all imminence that gods and men Address their dangers in. Hector is gone: Who shall tell Priam so, or Hecuba? Let him that will a screech-owl aye be call'd, Go in to Troy, and say there, Hector's dead: There is a word will Priam turn to stone; Make wells and Niobes of the maids and wives, Cold statues of the youth, and, in a word, Scare Troy out of itself. But, march away: Hector is dead; there is no more to say. Stay yet. You vile abominable tents, Thus proudly pight upon our Phrygian plains, Let Titan rise as early as he dare, I'll through and through you! and, thou great-sized coward, No space of earth shall sunder our two hates: I'll haunt thee like a wicked conscience still, That mouldeth goblins swift as frenzy's thoughts. Strike a free march to Troy! with comfort go: Hope of revenge shall hide our inward woe. [Exeunt AENEAS and Trojans] [As TROILUS is going out, enter, from the other side, PANDARUS] PANDARUS But hear you, hear you! TROILUS Hence, broker-lackey! ignomy and shame Pursue thy life, and live aye with thy name! [Exit] PANDARUS A goodly medicine for my aching bones! O world! world! world! thus is the poor agent despised! O traitors and bawds, how earnestly are you set a-work, and how ill requited! why should our endeavour be so loved and the performance so loathed? what verse for it? what instance for it? Let me see: Full merrily the humble-bee doth sing, Till he hath lost his honey and his sting; And being once subdued in armed tail, Sweet honey and sweet notes together fail. Good traders in the flesh, set this in your painted cloths. As many as be here of pander's hall, Your eyes, half out, weep out at Pandar's fall; Or if you cannot weep, yet give some groans, Though not for me, yet for your aching bones. Brethren and sisters of the hold-door trade, Some two months hence my will shall here be made: It should be now, but that my fear is this, Some galled goose of Winchester would hiss: Till then I'll sweat and seek about for eases, And at that time bequeathe you my diseases. [Exit] TWELFTH NIGHT DRAMATIS PERSONAE ORSINO Duke of Illyria. (DUKE ORSINO:) SEBASTIAN brother to Viola. ANTONIO a sea captain, friend to Sebastian. A Sea Captain, friend to Viola. (Captain:) VALENTINE | | gentlemen attending on the Duke. CURIO | SIR TOBY BELCH uncle to Olivia. SIR ANDREW AGUECHEEK (SIR ANDREW:) MALVOLIO steward to Olivia. FABIAN | | servants to Olivia. FESTE a Clown (Clown:) | OLIVIA: VIOLA: MARIA Olivia's woman. Lords, Priests, Sailors, Officers, Musicians, and other Attendants. (Priest:) (First Officer:) (Second Officer:) (Servant:) SCENE A city in Illyria, and the sea-coast near it. TWELFTH NIGHT ACT I SCENE I DUKE ORSINO's palace. [Enter DUKE ORSINO, CURIO, and other Lords; Musicians attending] DUKE ORSINO If music be the food of love, play on; Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die. That strain again! it had a dying fall: O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound, That breathes upon a bank of violets, Stealing and giving odour! Enough; no more: 'Tis not so sweet now as it was before. O spirit of love! how quick and fresh art thou, That, notwithstanding thy capacity Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there, Of what validity and pitch soe'er, But falls into abatement and low price, Even in a minute: so full of shapes is fancy That it alone is high fantastical. CURIO Will you go hunt, my lord? DUKE ORSINO What, Curio? CURIO The hart. DUKE ORSINO Why, so I do, the noblest that I have: O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first, Methought she purged the air of pestilence! That instant was I turn'd into a hart; And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds, E'er since pursue me. [Enter VALENTINE] How now! what news from her? VALENTINE So please my lord, I might not be admitted; But from her handmaid do return this answer: The element itself, till seven years' heat, Shall not behold her face at ample view; But, like a cloistress, she will veiled walk And water once a day her chamber round With eye-offending brine: all this to season A brother's dead love, which she would keep fresh And lasting in her sad remembrance. DUKE ORSINO O, she that hath a heart of that fine frame To pay this debt of love but to a brother, How will she love, when the rich golden shaft Hath kill'd the flock of all affections else That live in her; when liver, brain and heart, These sovereign thrones, are all supplied, and fill'd Her sweet perfections with one self king! Away before me to sweet beds of flowers: Love-thoughts lie rich when canopied with bowers. [Exeunt] TWELFTH NIGHT ACT I SCENE II The sea-coast. [Enter VIOLA, a Captain, and Sailors] VIOLA What country, friends, is this? Captain This is Illyria, lady. VIOLA And what should I do in Illyria? My brother he is in Elysium. Perchance he is not drown'd: what think you, sailors? Captain It is perchance that you yourself were saved. VIOLA O my poor brother! and so perchance may he be. Captain True, madam: and, to comfort you with chance, Assure yourself, after our ship did split, When you and those poor number saved with you Hung on our driving boat, I saw your brother, Most provident in peril, bind himself, Courage and hope both teaching him the practise, To a strong mast that lived upon the sea; Where, like Arion on the dolphin's back, I saw him hold acquaintance with the waves So long as I could see. VIOLA For saying so, there's gold: Mine own escape unfoldeth to my hope, Whereto thy speech serves for authority, The like of him. Know'st thou this country? Captain Ay, madam, well; for I was bred and born Not three hours' travel from this very place. VIOLA Who governs here? Captain A noble duke, in nature as in name. VIOLA What is the name? Captain Orsino. VIOLA Orsino! I have heard my father name him: He was a bachelor then. Captain And so is now, or was so very late; For but a month ago I went from hence, And then 'twas fresh in murmur,--as, you know, What great ones do the less will prattle of,-- That he did seek the love of fair Olivia. VIOLA What's she? Captain A virtuous maid, the daughter of a count That died some twelvemonth since, then leaving her In the protection of his son, her brother, Who shortly also died: for whose dear love, They say, she hath abjured the company And sight of men. VIOLA O that I served that lady And might not be delivered to the world, Till I had made mine own occasion mellow, What my estate is! Captain That were hard to compass; Because she will admit no kind of suit, No, not the duke's. VIOLA There is a fair behavior in thee, captain; And though that nature with a beauteous wall Doth oft close in pollution, yet of thee I will believe thou hast a mind that suits With this thy fair and outward character. I prithee, and I'll pay thee bounteously, Conceal me what I am, and be my aid For such disguise as haply shall become The form of my intent. I'll serve this duke: Thou shall present me as an eunuch to him: It may be worth thy pains; for I can sing And speak to him in many sorts of music That will allow me very worth his service. What else may hap to time I will commit; Only shape thou thy silence to my wit. Captain Be you his eunuch, and your mute I'll be: When my tongue blabs, then let mine eyes not see. VIOLA I thank thee: lead me on. [Exeunt] TWELFTH NIGHT ACT I SCENE III OLIVIA'S house. [Enter SIR TOBY BELCH and MARIA] SIR TOBY BELCH What a plague means my niece, to take the death of her brother thus? I am sure care's an enemy to life. MARIA By my troth, Sir Toby, you must come in earlier o' nights: your cousin, my lady, takes great exceptions to your ill hours. SIR TOBY BELCH Why, let her except, before excepted. MARIA Ay, but you must confine yourself within the modest limits of order. SIR TOBY BELCH Confine! I'll confine myself no finer than I am: these clothes are good enough to drink in; and so be these boots too: an they be not, let them hang themselves in their own straps. MARIA That quaffing and drinking will undo you: I heard my lady talk of it yesterday; and of a foolish knight that you brought in one night here to be her wooer. SIR TOBY BELCH Who, Sir Andrew Aguecheek? MARIA Ay, he. SIR TOBY BELCH He's as tall a man as any's in Illyria. MARIA What's that to the purpose? SIR TOBY BELCH Why, he has three thousand ducats a year. MARIA Ay, but he'll have but a year in all these ducats: he's a very fool and a prodigal. SIR TOBY BELCH Fie, that you'll say so! he plays o' the viol-de-gamboys, and speaks three or four languages word for word without book, and hath all the good gifts of nature. MARIA He hath indeed, almost natural: for besides that he's a fool, he's a great quarreller: and but that he hath the gift of a coward to allay the gust he hath in quarrelling, 'tis thought among the prudent he would quickly have the gift of a grave. SIR TOBY BELCH By this hand, they are scoundrels and subtractors that say so of him. Who are they? MARIA They that add, moreover, he's drunk nightly in your company. SIR TOBY BELCH With drinking healths to my niece: I'll drink to her as long as there is a passage in my throat and drink in Illyria: he's a coward and a coystrill that will not drink to my niece till his brains turn o' the toe like a parish-top. What, wench! Castiliano vulgo! for here comes Sir Andrew Agueface. [Enter SIR ANDREW] SIR ANDREW Sir Toby Belch! how now, Sir Toby Belch! SIR TOBY BELCH Sweet Sir Andrew! SIR ANDREW Bless you, fair shrew. MARIA And you too, sir. SIR TOBY BELCH Accost, Sir Andrew, accost. SIR ANDREW What's that? SIR TOBY BELCH My niece's chambermaid. SIR ANDREW Good Mistress Accost, I desire better acquaintance. MARIA My name is Mary, sir. SIR ANDREW Good Mistress Mary Accost,-- SIR TOBY BELCH You mistake, knight; 'accost' is front her, board her, woo her, assail her. SIR ANDREW By my troth, I would not undertake her in this company. Is that the meaning of 'accost'? MARIA Fare you well, gentlemen. SIR TOBY BELCH An thou let part so, Sir Andrew, would thou mightst never draw sword again. SIR ANDREW An you part so, mistress, I would I might never draw sword again. Fair lady, do you think you have fools in hand? MARIA Sir, I have not you by the hand. SIR ANDREW Marry, but you shall have; and here's my hand. MARIA Now, sir, 'thought is free:' I pray you, bring your hand to the buttery-bar and let it drink. SIR ANDREW Wherefore, sweet-heart? what's your metaphor? MARIA It's dry, sir. SIR ANDREW Why, I think so: I am not such an ass but I can keep my hand dry. But what's your jest? MARIA A dry jest, sir. SIR ANDREW Are you full of them? MARIA Ay, sir, I have them at my fingers' ends: marry, now I let go your hand, I am barren. [Exit] SIR TOBY BELCH O knight thou lackest a cup of canary: when did I see thee so put down? SIR ANDREW Never in your life, I think; unless you see canary put me down. Methinks sometimes I have no more wit than a Christian or an ordinary man has: but I am a great eater of beef and I believe that does harm to my wit. SIR TOBY BELCH No question. SIR ANDREW An I thought that, I'ld forswear it. I'll ride home to-morrow, Sir Toby. SIR TOBY BELCH Pourquoi, my dear knight? SIR ANDREW What is 'Pourquoi'? do or not do? I would I had bestowed that time in the tongues that I have in fencing, dancing and bear-baiting: O, had I but followed the arts! SIR TOBY BELCH Then hadst thou had an excellent head of hair. SIR ANDREW Why, would that have mended my hair? SIR TOBY BELCH Past question; for thou seest it will not curl by nature. SIR ANDREW But it becomes me well enough, does't not? SIR TOBY BELCH Excellent; it hangs like flax on a distaff; and I hope to see a housewife take thee between her legs and spin it off. SIR ANDREW Faith, I'll home to-morrow, Sir Toby: your niece will not be seen; or if she be, it's four to one she'll none of me: the count himself here hard by woos her. SIR TOBY BELCH She'll none o' the count: she'll not match above her degree, neither in estate, years, nor wit; I have heard her swear't. Tut, there's life in't, man. SIR ANDREW I'll stay a month longer. I am a fellow o' the strangest mind i' the world; I delight in masques and revels sometimes altogether. SIR TOBY BELCH Art thou good at these kickshawses, knight? SIR ANDREW As any man in Illyria, whatsoever he be, under the degree of my betters; and yet I will not compare with an old man. SIR TOBY BELCH What is thy excellence in a galliard, knight? SIR ANDREW Faith, I can cut a caper. SIR TOBY BELCH And I can cut the mutton to't. SIR ANDREW And I think I have the back-trick simply as strong as any man in Illyria. SIR TOBY BELCH Wherefore are these things hid? wherefore have these gifts a curtain before 'em? are they like to take dust, like Mistress Mall's picture? why dost thou not go to church in a galliard and come home in a coranto? My very walk should be a jig; I would not so much as make water but in a sink-a-pace. What dost thou mean? Is it a world to hide virtues in? I did think, by the excellent constitution of thy leg, it was formed under the star of a galliard. SIR ANDREW Ay, 'tis strong, and it does indifferent well in a flame-coloured stock. Shall we set about some revels? SIR TOBY BELCH What shall we do else? were we not born under Taurus? SIR ANDREW Taurus! That's sides and heart. SIR TOBY BELCH No, sir; it is legs and thighs. Let me see the caper; ha! higher: ha, ha! excellent! [Exeunt] TWELFTH NIGHT ACT I SCENE IV DUKE ORSINO's palace. [Enter VALENTINE and VIOLA in man's attire] VALENTINE If the duke continue these favours towards you, Cesario, you are like to be much advanced: he hath known you but three days, and already you are no stranger. VIOLA You either fear his humour or my negligence, that you call in question the continuance of his love: is he inconstant, sir, in his favours? VALENTINE No, believe me. VIOLA I thank you. Here comes the count. [Enter DUKE ORSINO, CURIO, and Attendants] DUKE ORSINO Who saw Cesario, ho? VIOLA On your attendance, my lord; here. DUKE ORSINO Stand you a while aloof, Cesario, Thou know'st no less but all; I have unclasp'd To thee the book even of my secret soul: Therefore, good youth, address thy gait unto her; Be not denied access, stand at her doors, And tell them, there thy fixed foot shall grow Till thou have audience. VIOLA Sure, my noble lord, If she be so abandon'd to her sorrow As it is spoke, she never will admit me. DUKE ORSINO Be clamorous and leap all civil bounds Rather than make unprofited return. VIOLA Say I do speak with her, my lord, what then? DUKE ORSINO O, then unfold the passion of my love, Surprise her with discourse of my dear faith: It shall become thee well to act my woes; She will attend it better in thy youth Than in a nuncio's of more grave aspect. VIOLA I think not so, my lord. DUKE ORSINO Dear lad, believe it; For they shall yet belie thy happy years, That say thou art a man: Diana's lip Is not more smooth and rubious; thy small pipe Is as the maiden's organ, shrill and sound, And all is semblative a woman's part. I know thy constellation is right apt For this affair. Some four or five attend him; All, if you will; for I myself am best When least in company. Prosper well in this, And thou shalt live as freely as thy lord, To call his fortunes thine. VIOLA I'll do my best To woo your lady: [Aside] yet, a barful strife! Whoe'er I woo, myself would be his wife. [Exeunt] TWELFTH NIGHT ACT I SCENE V OLIVIA'S house. [Enter MARIA and Clown] MARIA Nay, either tell me where thou hast been, or I will not open my lips so wide as a bristle may enter in way of thy excuse: my lady will hang thee for thy absence. Clown Let her hang me: he that is well hanged in this world needs to fear no colours. MARIA Make that good. Clown He shall see none to fear. MARIA A good lenten answer: I can tell thee where that saying was born, of 'I fear no colours.' Clown Where, good Mistress Mary? MARIA In the wars; and that may you be bold to say in your foolery. Clown Well, God give them wisdom that have it; and those that are fools, let them use their talents. MARIA Yet you will be hanged for being so long absent; or, to be turned away, is not that as good as a hanging to you? Clown Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage; and, for turning away, let summer bear it out. MARIA You are resolute, then? Clown Not so, neither; but I am resolved on two points. MARIA That if one break, the other will hold; or, if both break, your gaskins fall. Clown Apt, in good faith; very apt. Well, go thy way; if Sir Toby would leave drinking, thou wert as witty a piece of Eve's flesh as any in Illyria. MARIA Peace, you rogue, no more o' that. Here comes my lady: make your excuse wisely, you were best. [Exit] Clown Wit, an't be thy will, put me into good fooling! Those wits, that think they have thee, do very oft prove fools; and I, that am sure I lack thee, may pass for a wise man: for what says Quinapalus? 'Better a witty fool, than a foolish wit.' [Enter OLIVIA with MALVOLIO] God bless thee, lady! OLIVIA Take the fool away. Clown Do you not hear, fellows? Take away the lady. OLIVIA Go to, you're a dry fool; I'll no more of you: besides, you grow dishonest. Clown Two faults, madonna, that drink and good counsel will amend: for give the dry fool drink, then is the fool not dry: bid the dishonest man mend himself; if he mend, he is no longer dishonest; if he cannot, let the botcher mend him. Any thing that's mended is but patched: virtue that transgresses is but patched with sin; and sin that amends is but patched with virtue. If that this simple syllogism will serve, so; if it will not, what remedy? As there is no true cuckold but calamity, so beauty's a flower. The lady bade take away the fool; therefore, I say again, take her away. OLIVIA Sir, I bade them take away you. Clown Misprision in the highest degree! Lady, cucullus non facit monachum; that's as much to say as I wear not motley in my brain. Good madonna, give me leave to prove you a fool. OLIVIA Can you do it? Clown Dexterously, good madonna. OLIVIA Make your proof. Clown I must catechise you for it, madonna: good my mouse of virtue, answer me. OLIVIA Well, sir, for want of other idleness, I'll bide your proof. Clown Good madonna, why mournest thou? OLIVIA Good fool, for my brother's death. Clown I think his soul is in hell, madonna. OLIVIA I know his soul is in heaven, fool. Clown The more fool, madonna, to mourn for your brother's soul being in heaven. Take away the fool, gentlemen. OLIVIA What think you of this fool, Malvolio? doth he not mend? MALVOLIO Yes, and shall do till the pangs of death shake him: infirmity, that decays the wise, doth ever make the better fool. Clown God send you, sir, a speedy infirmity, for the better increasing your folly! Sir Toby will be sworn that I am no fox; but he will not pass his word for two pence that you are no fool. OLIVIA How say you to that, Malvolio? MALVOLIO I marvel your ladyship takes delight in such a barren rascal: I saw him put down the other day with an ordinary fool that has no more brain than a stone. Look you now, he's out of his guard already; unless you laugh and minister occasion to him, he is gagged. I protest, I take these wise men, that crow so at these set kind of fools, no better than the fools' zanies. OLIVIA Oh, you are sick of self-love, Malvolio, and taste with a distempered appetite. To be generous, guiltless and of free disposition, is to take those things for bird-bolts that you deem cannon-bullets: there is no slander in an allowed fool, though he do nothing but rail; nor no railing in a known discreet man, though he do nothing but reprove. Clown Now Mercury endue thee with leasing, for thou speakest well of fools! [Re-enter MARIA] MARIA Madam, there is at the gate a young gentleman much desires to speak with you. OLIVIA From the Count Orsino, is it? MARIA I know not, madam: 'tis a fair young man, and well attended. OLIVIA Who of my people hold him in delay? MARIA Sir Toby, madam, your kinsman. OLIVIA Fetch him off, I pray you; he speaks nothing but madman: fie on him! [Exit MARIA] Go you, Malvolio: if it be a suit from the count, I am sick, or not at home; what you will, to dismiss it. [Exit MALVOLIO] Now you see, sir, how your fooling grows old, and people dislike it. Clown Thou hast spoke for us, madonna, as if thy eldest son should be a fool; whose skull Jove cram with brains! for,--here he comes,--one of thy kin has a most weak pia mater. [Enter SIR TOBY BELCH] OLIVIA By mine honour, half drunk. What is he at the gate, cousin? SIR TOBY BELCH A gentleman. OLIVIA A gentleman! what gentleman? SIR TOBY BELCH 'Tis a gentle man here--a plague o' these pickle-herring! How now, sot! Clown Good Sir Toby! OLIVIA Cousin, cousin, how have you come so early by this lethargy? SIR TOBY BELCH Lechery! I defy lechery. There's one at the gate. OLIVIA Ay, marry, what is he? SIR TOBY BELCH Let him be the devil, an he will, I care not: give me faith, say I. Well, it's all one. [Exit] OLIVIA What's a drunken man like, fool? Clown Like a drowned man, a fool and a mad man: one draught above heat makes him a fool; the second mads him; and a third drowns him. OLIVIA Go thou and seek the crowner, and let him sit o' my coz; for he's in the third degree of drink, he's drowned: go, look after him. Clown He is but mad yet, madonna; and the fool shall look to the madman. [Exit] [Re-enter MALVOLIO] MALVOLIO Madam, yond young fellow swears he will speak with you. I told him you were sick; he takes on him to understand so much, and therefore comes to speak with you. I told him you were asleep; he seems to have a foreknowledge of that too, and therefore comes to speak with you. What is to be said to him, lady? he's fortified against any denial. OLIVIA Tell him he shall not speak with me. MALVOLIO Has been told so; and he says, he'll stand at your door like a sheriff's post, and be the supporter to a bench, but he'll speak with you. OLIVIA What kind o' man is he? MALVOLIO Why, of mankind. OLIVIA What manner of man? MALVOLIO Of very ill manner; he'll speak with you, will you or no. OLIVIA Of what personage and years is he? MALVOLIO Not yet old enough for a man, nor young enough for a boy; as a squash is before 'tis a peascod, or a cooling when 'tis almost an apple: 'tis with him in standing water, between boy and man. He is very well-favoured and he speaks very shrewishly; one would think his mother's milk were scarce out of him. OLIVIA Let him approach: call in my gentlewoman. MALVOLIO Gentlewoman, my lady calls. [Exit] [Re-enter MARIA] OLIVIA Give me my veil: come, throw it o'er my face. We'll once more hear Orsino's embassy. [Enter VIOLA, and Attendants] VIOLA The honourable lady of the house, which is she? OLIVIA Speak to me; I shall answer for her. Your will? VIOLA Most radiant, exquisite and unmatchable beauty,--I pray you, tell me if this be the lady of the house, for I never saw her: I would be loath to cast away my speech, for besides that it is excellently well penned, I have taken great pains to con it. Good beauties, let me sustain no scorn; I am very comptible, even to the least sinister usage. OLIVIA Whence came you, sir? VIOLA I can say little more than I have studied, and that question's out of my part. Good gentle one, give me modest assurance if you be the lady of the house, that I may proceed in my speech. OLIVIA Are you a comedian? VIOLA No, my profound heart: and yet, by the very fangs of malice I swear, I am not that I play. Are you the lady of the house? OLIVIA If I do not usurp myself, I am. VIOLA Most certain, if you are she, you do usurp yourself; for what is yours to bestow is not yours to reserve. But this is from my commission: I will on with my speech in your praise, and then show you the heart of my message. OLIVIA Come to what is important in't: I forgive you the praise. VIOLA Alas, I took great pains to study it, and 'tis poetical. OLIVIA It is the more like to be feigned: I pray you, keep it in. I heard you were saucy at my gates, and allowed your approach rather to wonder at you than to hear you. If you be not mad, be gone; if you have reason, be brief: 'tis not that time of moon with me to make one in so skipping a dialogue. MARIA Will you hoist sail, sir? here lies your way. VIOLA No, good swabber; I am to hull here a little longer. Some mollification for your giant, sweet lady. Tell me your mind: I am a messenger. OLIVIA Sure, you have some hideous matter to deliver, when the courtesy of it is so fearful. Speak your office. VIOLA It alone concerns your ear. I bring no overture of war, no taxation of homage: I hold the olive in my hand; my words are as fun of peace as matter. OLIVIA Yet you began rudely. What are you? what would you? VIOLA The rudeness that hath appeared in me have I learned from my entertainment. What I am, and what I would, are as secret as maidenhead; to your ears, divinity, to any other's, profanation. OLIVIA Give us the place alone: we will hear this divinity. [Exeunt MARIA and Attendants] Now, sir, what is your text? VIOLA Most sweet lady,-- OLIVIA A comfortable doctrine, and much may be said of it. Where lies your text? VIOLA In Orsino's bosom. OLIVIA In his bosom! In what chapter of his bosom? VIOLA To answer by the method, in the first of his heart. OLIVIA O, I have read it: it is heresy. Have you no more to say? VIOLA Good madam, let me see your face. OLIVIA Have you any commission from your lord to negotiate with my face? You are now out of your text: but we will draw the curtain and show you the picture. Look you, sir, such a one I was this present: is't not well done? [Unveiling] VIOLA Excellently done, if God did all. OLIVIA 'Tis in grain, sir; 'twill endure wind and weather. VIOLA 'Tis beauty truly blent, whose red and white Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on: Lady, you are the cruell'st she alive, If you will lead these graces to the grave And leave the world no copy. OLIVIA O, sir, I will not be so hard-hearted; I will give out divers schedules of my beauty: it shall be inventoried, and every particle and utensil labelled to my will: as, item, two lips, indifferent red; item, two grey eyes, with lids to them; item, one neck, one chin, and so forth. Were you sent hither to praise me? VIOLA I see you what you are, you are too proud; But, if you were the devil, you are fair. My lord and master loves you: O, such love Could be but recompensed, though you were crown'd The nonpareil of beauty! OLIVIA How does he love me? VIOLA With adorations, fertile tears, With groans that thunder love, with sighs of fire. OLIVIA Your lord does know my mind; I cannot love him: Yet I suppose him virtuous, know him noble, Of great estate, of fresh and stainless youth; In voices well divulged, free, learn'd and valiant; And in dimension and the shape of nature A gracious person: but yet I cannot love him; He might have took his answer long ago. VIOLA If I did love you in my master's flame, With such a suffering, such a deadly life, In your denial I would find no sense; I would not understand it. OLIVIA Why, what would you? VIOLA Make me a willow cabin at your gate, And call upon my soul within the house; Write loyal cantons of contemned love And sing them loud even in the dead of night; Halloo your name to the reverberate hills And make the babbling gossip of the air Cry out 'Olivia!' O, You should not rest Between the elements of air and earth, But you should pity me! OLIVIA You might do much. What is your parentage? VIOLA Above my fortunes, yet my state is well: I am a gentleman. OLIVIA Get you to your lord; I cannot love him: let him send no more; Unless, perchance, you come to me again, To tell me how he takes it. Fare you well: I thank you for your pains: spend this for me. VIOLA I am no fee'd post, lady; keep your purse: My master, not myself, lacks recompense. Love make his heart of flint that you shall love; And let your fervor, like my master's, be Placed in contempt! Farewell, fair cruelty. [Exit] OLIVIA 'What is your parentage?' 'Above my fortunes, yet my state is well: I am a gentleman.' I'll be sworn thou art; Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions and spirit, Do give thee five-fold blazon: not too fast: soft, soft! Unless the master were the man. How now! Even so quickly may one catch the plague? Methinks I feel this youth's perfections With an invisible and subtle stealth To creep in at mine eyes. Well, let it be. What ho, Malvolio! [Re-enter MALVOLIO] MALVOLIO Here, madam, at your service. OLIVIA Run after that same peevish messenger, The county's man: he left this ring behind him, Would I or not: tell him I'll none of it. Desire him not to flatter with his lord, Nor hold him up with hopes; I am not for him: If that the youth will come this way to-morrow, I'll give him reasons for't: hie thee, Malvolio. MALVOLIO Madam, I will. [Exit] OLIVIA I do I know not what, and fear to find Mine eye too great a flatterer for my mind. Fate, show thy force: ourselves we do not owe; What is decreed must be, and be this so. [Exit] TWELFTH NIGHT ACT II SCENE I The sea-coast. [Enter ANTONIO and SEBASTIAN] ANTONIO Will you stay no longer? nor will you not that I go with you? SEBASTIAN By your patience, no. My stars shine darkly over me: the malignancy of my fate might perhaps distemper yours; therefore I shall crave of you your leave that I may bear my evils alone: it were a bad recompense for your love, to lay any of them on you. ANTONIO: Let me yet know of you whither you are bound. SEBASTIAN No, sooth, sir: my determinate voyage is mere extravagancy. But I perceive in you so excellent a touch of modesty, that you will not extort from me what I am willing to keep in; therefore it charges me in manners the rather to express myself. You must know of me then, Antonio, my name is Sebastian, which I called Roderigo. My father was that Sebastian of Messaline, whom I know you have heard of. He left behind him myself and a sister, both born in an hour: if the heavens had been pleased, would we had so ended! but you, sir, altered that; for some hour before you took me from the breach of the sea was my sister drowned. ANTONIO Alas the day! SEBASTIAN A lady, sir, though it was said she much resembled me, was yet of many accounted beautiful: but, though I could not with such estimable wonder overfar believe that, yet thus far I will boldly publish her; she bore a mind that envy could not but call fair. She is drowned already, sir, with salt water, though I seem to drown her remembrance again with more. ANTONIO Pardon me, sir, your bad entertainment. SEBASTIAN O good Antonio, forgive me your trouble. ANTONIO If you will not murder me for my love, let me be your servant. SEBASTIAN If you will not undo what you have done, that is, kill him whom you have recovered, desire it not. Fare ye well at once: my bosom is full of kindness, and I am yet so near the manners of my mother, that upon the least occasion more mine eyes will tell tales of me. I am bound to the Count Orsino's court: farewell. [Exit] ANTONIO The gentleness of all the gods go with thee! I have many enemies in Orsino's court, Else would I very shortly see thee there. But, come what may, I do adore thee so, That danger shall seem sport, and I will go. [Exit] TWELFTH NIGHT ACT II SCENE II A street. [Enter VIOLA, MALVOLIO following] MALVOLIO Were not you even now with the Countess Olivia? VIOLA Even now, sir; on a moderate pace I have since arrived but hither. MALVOLIO She returns this ring to you, sir: you might have saved me my pains, to have taken it away yourself. She adds, moreover, that you should put your lord into a desperate assurance she will none of him: and one thing more, that you be never so hardy to come again in his affairs, unless it be to report your lord's taking of this. Receive it so. VIOLA She took the ring of me: I'll none of it. MALVOLIO Come, sir, you peevishly threw it to her; and her will is, it should be so returned: if it be worth stooping for, there it lies in your eye; if not, be it his that finds it. [Exit] VIOLA I left no ring with her: what means this lady? Fortune forbid my outside have not charm'd her! She made good view of me; indeed, so much, That sure methought her eyes had lost her tongue, For she did speak in starts distractedly. She loves me, sure; the cunning of her passion Invites me in this churlish messenger. None of my lord's ring! why, he sent her none. I am the man: if it be so, as 'tis, Poor lady, she were better love a dream. Disguise, I see, thou art a wickedness, Wherein the pregnant enemy does much. How easy is it for the proper-false In women's waxen hearts to set their forms! Alas, our frailty is the cause, not we! For such as we are made of, such we be. How will this fadge? my master loves her dearly; And I, poor monster, fond as much on him; And she, mistaken, seems to dote on me. What will become of this? As I am man, My state is desperate for my master's love; As I am woman,--now alas the day!-- What thriftless sighs shall poor Olivia breathe! O time! thou must untangle this, not I; It is too hard a knot for me to untie! [Exit] TWELFTH NIGHT ACT II SCENE III OLIVIA's house. [Enter SIR TOBY BELCH and SIR ANDREW] SIR TOBY BELCH Approach, Sir Andrew: not to be abed after midnight is to be up betimes; and 'diluculo surgere,' thou know'st,-- SIR ANDREW Nay, my troth, I know not: but I know, to be up late is to be up late. SIR TOBY BELCH A false conclusion: I hate it as an unfilled can. To be up after midnight and to go to bed then, is early: so that to go to bed after midnight is to go to bed betimes. Does not our life consist of the four elements? SIR ANDREW Faith, so they say; but I think it rather consists of eating and drinking. SIR TOBY BELCH Thou'rt a scholar; let us therefore eat and drink. Marian, I say! a stoup of wine! [Enter Clown] SIR ANDREW Here comes the fool, i' faith. Clown How now, my hearts! did you never see the picture of 'we three'? SIR TOBY BELCH Welcome, ass. Now let's have a catch. SIR ANDREW By my troth, the fool has an excellent breast. I had rather than forty shillings I had such a leg, and so sweet a breath to sing, as the fool has. In sooth, thou wast in very gracious fooling last night, when thou spokest of Pigrogromitus, of the Vapians passing the equinoctial of Queubus: 'twas very good, i' faith. I sent thee sixpence for thy leman: hadst it? Clown I did impeticos thy gratillity; for Malvolio's nose is no whipstock: my lady has a white hand, and the Myrmidons are no bottle-ale houses. SIR ANDREW Excellent! why, this is the best fooling, when all is done. Now, a song. SIR TOBY BELCH Come on; there is sixpence for you: let's have a song. SIR ANDREW There's a testril of me too: if one knight give a-- Clown Would you have a love-song, or a song of good life? SIR TOBY BELCH A love-song, a love-song. SIR ANDREW Ay, ay: I care not for good life. Clown [Sings] O mistress mine, where are you roaming? O, stay and hear; your true love's coming, That can sing both high and low: Trip no further, pretty sweeting; Journeys end in lovers meeting, Every wise man's son doth know. SIR ANDREW Excellent good, i' faith. SIR TOBY BELCH Good, good. Clown [Sings] What is love? 'tis not hereafter; Present mirth hath present laughter; What's to come is still unsure: In delay there lies no plenty; Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty, Youth's a stuff will not endure. SIR ANDREW A mellifluous voice, as I am true knight. SIR TOBY BELCH A contagious breath. SIR ANDREW Very sweet and contagious, i' faith. SIR TOBY BELCH To hear by the nose, it is dulcet in contagion. But shall we make the welkin dance indeed? shall we rouse the night-owl in a catch that will draw three souls out of one weaver? shall we do that? SIR ANDREW An you love me, let's do't: I am dog at a catch. Clown By'r lady, sir, and some dogs will catch well. SIR ANDREW Most certain. Let our catch be, 'Thou knave.' Clown 'Hold thy peace, thou knave,' knight? I shall be constrained in't to call thee knave, knight. SIR ANDREW 'Tis not the first time I have constrained one to call me knave. Begin, fool: it begins 'Hold thy peace.' Clown I shall never begin if I hold my peace. SIR ANDREW Good, i' faith. Come, begin. [Catch sung] [Enter MARIA] MARIA What a caterwauling do you keep here! If my lady have not called up her steward Malvolio and bid him turn you out of doors, never trust me. SIR TOBY BELCH My lady's a Cataian, we are politicians, Malvolio's a Peg-a-Ramsey, and 'Three merry men be we.' Am not I consanguineous? am I not of her blood? Tillyvally. Lady! [Sings] 'There dwelt a man in Babylon, lady, lady!' Clown Beshrew me, the knight's in admirable fooling. SIR ANDREW Ay, he does well enough if he be disposed, and so do I too: he does it with a better grace, but I do it more natural. SIR TOBY BELCH [Sings] 'O, the twelfth day of December,'-- MARIA For the love o' God, peace! [Enter MALVOLIO] MALVOLIO My masters, are you mad? or what are you? Have ye no wit, manners, nor honesty, but to gabble like tinkers at this time of night? Do ye make an alehouse of my lady's house, that ye squeak out your coziers' catches without any mitigation or remorse of voice? Is there no respect of place, persons, nor time in you? SIR TOBY BELCH We did keep time, sir, in our catches. Sneck up! MALVOLIO Sir Toby, I must be round with you. My lady bade me tell you, that, though she harbours you as her kinsman, she's nothing allied to your disorders. If you can separate yourself and your misdemeanors, you are welcome to the house; if not, an it would please you to take leave of her, she is very willing to bid you farewell. SIR TOBY BELCH 'Farewell, dear heart, since I must needs be gone.' MARIA Nay, good Sir Toby. Clown 'His eyes do show his days are almost done.' MALVOLIO Is't even so? SIR TOBY BELCH 'But I will never die.' Clown Sir Toby, there you lie. MALVOLIO This is much credit to you. SIR TOBY BELCH 'Shall I bid him go?' Clown 'What an if you do?' SIR TOBY BELCH 'Shall I bid him go, and spare not?' Clown 'O no, no, no, no, you dare not.' SIR TOBY BELCH Out o' tune, sir: ye lie. Art any more than a steward? Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale? Clown Yes, by Saint Anne, and ginger shall be hot i' the mouth too. SIR TOBY BELCH Thou'rt i' the right. Go, sir, rub your chain with crumbs. A stoup of wine, Maria! MALVOLIO Mistress Mary, if you prized my lady's favour at any thing more than contempt, you would not give means for this uncivil rule: she shall know of it, by this hand. [Exit] MARIA Go shake your ears. SIR ANDREW 'Twere as good a deed as to drink when a man's a-hungry, to challenge him the field, and then to break promise with him and make a fool of him. SIR TOBY BELCH Do't, knight: I'll write thee a challenge: or I'll deliver thy indignation to him by word of mouth. MARIA Sweet Sir Toby, be patient for tonight: since the youth of the count's was today with thy lady, she is much out of quiet. For Monsieur Malvolio, let me alone with him: if I do not gull him into a nayword, and make him a common recreation, do not think I have wit enough to lie straight in my bed: I know I can do it. SIR TOBY BELCH Possess us, possess us; tell us something of him. MARIA Marry, sir, sometimes he is a kind of puritan. SIR ANDREW O, if I thought that I'ld beat him like a dog! SIR TOBY BELCH What, for being a puritan? thy exquisite reason, dear knight? SIR ANDREW I have no exquisite reason for't, but I have reason good enough. MARIA The devil a puritan that he is, or any thing constantly, but a time-pleaser; an affectioned ass, that cons state without book and utters it by great swarths: the best persuaded of himself, so crammed, as he thinks, with excellencies, that it is his grounds of faith that all that look on him love him; and on that vice in him will my revenge find notable cause to work. SIR TOBY BELCH What wilt thou do? MARIA I will drop in his way some obscure epistles of love; wherein, by the colour of his beard, the shape of his leg, the manner of his gait, the expressure of his eye, forehead, and complexion, he shall find himself most feelingly personated. I can write very like my lady your niece: on a forgotten matter we can hardly make distinction of our hands. SIR TOBY BELCH Excellent! I smell a device. SIR ANDREW I have't in my nose too. SIR TOBY BELCH He shall think, by the letters that thou wilt drop, that they come from my niece, and that she's in love with him. MARIA My purpose is, indeed, a horse of that colour. SIR ANDREW And your horse now would make him an ass. MARIA Ass, I doubt not. SIR ANDREW O, 'twill be admirable! MARIA Sport royal, I warrant you: I know my physic will work with him. I will plant you two, and let the fool make a third, where he shall find the letter: observe his construction of it. For this night, to bed, and dream on the event. Farewell. [Exit] SIR TOBY BELCH Good night, Penthesilea. SIR ANDREW Before me, she's a good wench. SIR TOBY BELCH She's a beagle, true-bred, and one that adores me: what o' that? SIR ANDREW I was adored once too. SIR TOBY BELCH Let's to bed, knight. Thou hadst need send for more money. SIR ANDREW If I cannot recover your niece, I am a foul way out. SIR TOBY BELCH Send for money, knight: if thou hast her not i' the end, call me cut. SIR ANDREW If I do not, never trust me, take it how you will. SIR TOBY BELCH Come, come, I'll go burn some sack; 'tis too late to go to bed now: come, knight; come, knight. [Exeunt] TWELFTH NIGHT ACT II SCENE IV DUKE ORSINO's palace. [Enter DUKE ORSINO, VIOLA, CURIO, and others] DUKE ORSINO Give me some music. Now, good morrow, friends. Now, good Cesario, but that piece of song, That old and antique song we heard last night: Methought it did relieve my passion much, More than light airs and recollected terms Of these most brisk and giddy-paced times: Come, but one verse. CURIO He is not here, so please your lordship that should sing it. DUKE ORSINO Who was it? CURIO Feste, the jester, my lord; a fool that the lady Olivia's father took much delight in. He is about the house. DUKE ORSINO Seek him out, and play the tune the while. [Exit CURIO. Music plays] Come hither, boy: if ever thou shalt love, In the sweet pangs of it remember me; For such as I am all true lovers are, Unstaid and skittish in all motions else, Save in the constant image of the creature That is beloved. How dost thou like this tune? VIOLA It gives a very echo to the seat Where Love is throned. DUKE ORSINO Thou dost speak masterly: My life upon't, young though thou art, thine eye Hath stay'd upon some favour that it loves: Hath it not, boy? VIOLA A little, by your favour. DUKE ORSINO What kind of woman is't? VIOLA Of your complexion. DUKE ORSINO She is not worth thee, then. What years, i' faith? VIOLA About your years, my lord. DUKE ORSINO Too old by heaven: let still the woman take An elder than herself: so wears she to him, So sways she level in her husband's heart: For, boy, however we do praise ourselves, Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm, More longing, wavering, sooner lost and worn, Than women's are. VIOLA I think it well, my lord. DUKE ORSINO Then let thy love be younger than thyself, Or thy affection cannot hold the bent; For women are as roses, whose fair flower Being once display'd, doth fall that very hour. VIOLA And so they are: alas, that they are so; To die, even when they to perfection grow! [Re-enter CURIO and Clown] DUKE ORSINO O, fellow, come, the song we had last night. Mark it, Cesario, it is old and plain; The spinsters and the knitters in the sun And the free maids that weave their thread with bones Do use to chant it: it is silly sooth, And dallies with the innocence of love, Like the old age. Clown Are you ready, sir? DUKE ORSINO Ay; prithee, sing. [Music] SONG. Clown Come away, come away, death, And in sad cypress let me be laid; Fly away, fly away breath; I am slain by a fair cruel maid. My shroud of white, stuck all with yew, O, prepare it! My part of death, no one so true Did share it. Not a flower, not a flower sweet On my black coffin let there be strown; Not a friend, not a friend greet My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown: A thousand thousand sighs to save, Lay me, O, where Sad true lover never find my grave, To weep there! DUKE ORSINO There's for thy pains. Clown No pains, sir: I take pleasure in singing, sir. DUKE ORSINO I'll pay thy pleasure then. Clown Truly, sir, and pleasure will be paid, one time or another. DUKE ORSINO Give me now leave to leave thee. Clown Now, the melancholy god protect thee; and the tailor make thy doublet of changeable taffeta, for thy mind is a very opal. I would have men of such constancy put to sea, that their business might be every thing and their intent every where; for that's it that always makes a good voyage of nothing. Farewell. [Exit] DUKE ORSINO Let all the rest give place. [CURIO and Attendants retire] Once more, Cesario, Get thee to yond same sovereign cruelty: Tell her, my love, more noble than the world, Prizes not quantity of dirty lands; The parts that fortune hath bestow'd upon her, Tell her, I hold as giddily as fortune; But 'tis that miracle and queen of gems That nature pranks her in attracts my soul. VIOLA But if she cannot love you, sir? DUKE ORSINO I cannot be so answer'd. VIOLA Sooth, but you must. Say that some lady, as perhaps there is, Hath for your love a great a pang of heart As you have for Olivia: you cannot love her; You tell her so; must she not then be answer'd? DUKE ORSINO There is no woman's sides Can bide the beating of so strong a passion As love doth give my heart; no woman's heart So big, to hold so much; they lack retention Alas, their love may be call'd appetite, No motion of the liver, but the palate, That suffer surfeit, cloyment and revolt; But mine is all as hungry as the sea, And can digest as much: make no compare Between that love a woman can bear me And that I owe Olivia. VIOLA Ay, but I know-- DUKE ORSINO What dost thou know? VIOLA Too well what love women to men may owe: In faith, they are as true of heart as we. My father had a daughter loved a man, As it might be, perhaps, were I a woman, I should your lordship. DUKE ORSINO And what's her history? VIOLA A blank, my lord. She never told her love, But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud, Feed on her damask cheek: she pined in thought, And with a green and yellow melancholy She sat like patience on a monument, Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed? We men may say more, swear more: but indeed Our shows are more than will; for still we prove Much in our vows, but little in our love. DUKE ORSINO But died thy sister of her love, my boy? VIOLA I am all the daughters of my father's house, And all the brothers too: and yet I know not. Sir, shall I to this lady? DUKE ORSINO Ay, that's the theme. To her in haste; give her this jewel; say, My love can give no place, bide no denay. [Exeunt] TWELFTH NIGHT ACT II SCENE V OLIVIA's garden. [Enter SIR TOBY BELCH, SIR ANDREW, and FABIAN] SIR TOBY BELCH Come thy ways, Signior Fabian. FABIAN Nay, I'll come: if I lose a scruple of this sport, let me be boiled to death with melancholy. SIR TOBY BELCH Wouldst thou not be glad to have the niggardly rascally sheep-biter come by some notable shame? FABIAN I would exult, man: you know, he brought me out o' favour with my lady about a bear-baiting here. SIR TOBY BELCH To anger him we'll have the bear again; and we will fool him black and blue: shall we not, Sir Andrew? SIR ANDREW An we do not, it is pity of our lives. SIR TOBY BELCH Here comes the little villain. [Enter MARIA] How now, my metal of India! MARIA Get ye all three into the box-tree: Malvolio's coming down this walk: he has been yonder i' the sun practising behavior to his own shadow this half hour: observe him, for the love of mockery; for I know this letter will make a contemplative idiot of him. Close, in the name of jesting! Lie thou there, [Throws down a letter] for here comes the trout that must be caught with tickling. [Exit] [Enter MALVOLIO] MALVOLIO 'Tis but fortune; all is fortune. Maria once told me she did affect me: and I have heard herself come thus near, that, should she fancy, it should be one of my complexion. Besides, she uses me with a more exalted respect than any one else that follows her. What should I think on't? SIR TOBY BELCH Here's an overweening rogue! FABIAN O, peace! Contemplation makes a rare turkey-cock of him: how he jets under his advanced plumes! SIR ANDREW 'Slight, I could so beat the rogue! SIR TOBY BELCH Peace, I say. MALVOLIO To be Count Malvolio! SIR TOBY BELCH Ah, rogue! SIR ANDREW Pistol him, pistol him. SIR TOBY BELCH Peace, peace! MALVOLIO There is example for't; the lady of the Strachy married the yeoman of the wardrobe. SIR ANDREW Fie on him, Jezebel! FABIAN O, peace! now he's deeply in: look how imagination blows him. MALVOLIO Having been three months married to her, sitting in my state,-- SIR TOBY BELCH O, for a stone-bow, to hit him in the eye! MALVOLIO Calling my officers about me, in my branched velvet gown; having come from a day-bed, where I have left Olivia sleeping,-- SIR TOBY BELCH Fire and brimstone! FABIAN O, peace, peace! MALVOLIO And then to have the humour of state; and after a demure travel of regard, telling them I know my place as I would they should do theirs, to for my kinsman Toby,-- SIR TOBY BELCH Bolts and shackles! FABIAN O peace, peace, peace! now, now. MALVOLIO Seven of my people, with an obedient start, make out for him: I frown the while; and perchance wind up watch, or play with my--some rich jewel. Toby approaches; courtesies there to me,-- SIR TOBY BELCH Shall this fellow live? FABIAN Though our silence be drawn from us with cars, yet peace. MALVOLIO I extend my hand to him thus, quenching my familiar smile with an austere regard of control,-- SIR TOBY BELCH And does not Toby take you a blow o' the lips then? MALVOLIO Saying, 'Cousin Toby, my fortunes having cast me on your niece give me this prerogative of speech,'-- SIR TOBY BELCH What, what? MALVOLIO 'You must amend your drunkenness.' SIR TOBY BELCH Out, scab! FABIAN Nay, patience, or we break the sinews of our plot. MALVOLIO 'Besides, you waste the treasure of your time with a foolish knight,'-- SIR ANDREW That's me, I warrant you. MALVOLIO 'One Sir Andrew,'-- SIR ANDREW I knew 'twas I; for many do call me fool. MALVOLIO What employment have we here? [Taking up the letter] FABIAN Now is the woodcock near the gin. SIR TOBY BELCH O, peace! and the spirit of humour intimate reading aloud to him! MALVOLIO By my life, this is my lady's hand these be her very C's, her U's and her T's and thus makes she her great P's. It is, in contempt of question, her hand. SIR ANDREW Her C's, her U's and her T's: why that? MALVOLIO [Reads] 'To the unknown beloved, this, and my good wishes:'--her very phrases! By your leave, wax. Soft! and the impressure her Lucrece, with which she uses to seal: 'tis my lady. To whom should this be? FABIAN This wins him, liver and all. MALVOLIO [Reads] Jove knows I love: But who? Lips, do not move; No man must know. 'No man must know.' What follows? the numbers altered! 'No man must know:' if this should be thee, Malvolio? SIR TOBY BELCH Marry, hang thee, brock! MALVOLIO [Reads] I may command where I adore; But silence, like a Lucrece knife, With bloodless stroke my heart doth gore: M, O, A, I, doth sway my life. FABIAN A fustian riddle! SIR TOBY BELCH Excellent wench, say I. MALVOLIO 'M, O, A, I, doth sway my life.' Nay, but first, let me see, let me see, let me see. FABIAN What dish o' poison has she dressed him! SIR TOBY BELCH And with what wing the staniel cheques at it! MALVOLIO 'I may command where I adore.' Why, she may command me: I serve her; she is my lady. Why, this is evident to any formal capacity; there is no obstruction in this: and the end,--what should that alphabetical position portend? If I could make that resemble something in me,--Softly! M, O, A, I,-- SIR TOBY BELCH O, ay, make up that: he is now at a cold scent. FABIAN Sowter will cry upon't for all this, though it be as rank as a fox. MALVOLIO M,--Malvolio; M,--why, that begins my name. FABIAN Did not I say he would work it out? the cur is excellent at faults. MALVOLIO M,--but then there is no consonancy in the sequel; that suffers under probation A should follow but O does. FABIAN And O shall end, I hope. SIR TOBY BELCH Ay, or I'll cudgel him, and make him cry O! MALVOLIO And then I comes behind. FABIAN Ay, an you had any eye behind you, you might see more detraction at your heels than fortunes before you. MALVOLIO M, O, A, I; this simulation is not as the former: and yet, to crush this a little, it would bow to me, for every one of these letters are in my name. Soft! here follows prose. [Reads] 'If this fall into thy hand, revolve. In my stars I am above thee; but be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em. Thy Fates open their hands; let thy blood and spirit embrace them; and, to inure thyself to what thou art like to be, cast thy humble slough and appear fresh. Be opposite with a kinsman, surly with servants; let thy tongue tang arguments of state; put thyself into the trick of singularity: she thus advises thee that sighs for thee. Remember who commended thy yellow stockings, and wished to see thee ever cross-gartered: I say, remember. Go to, thou art made, if thou desirest to be so; if not, let me see thee a steward still, the fellow of servants, and not worthy to touch Fortune's fingers. Farewell. She that would alter services with thee, THE FORTUNATE-UNHAPPY.' Daylight and champaign discovers not more: this is open. I will be proud, I will read politic authors, I will baffle Sir Toby, I will wash off gross acquaintance, I will be point-devise the very man. I do not now fool myself, to let imagination jade me; for every reason excites to this, that my lady loves me. She did commend my yellow stockings of late, she did praise my leg being cross-gartered; and in this she manifests herself to my love, and with a kind of injunction drives me to these habits of her liking. I thank my stars I am happy. I will be strange, stout, in yellow stockings, and cross-gartered, even with the swiftness of putting on. Jove and my stars be praised! Here is yet a postscript. [Reads] 'Thou canst not choose but know who I am. If thou entertainest my love, let it appear in thy smiling; thy smiles become thee well; therefore in my presence still smile, dear my sweet, I prithee.' Jove, I thank thee: I will smile; I will do everything that thou wilt have me. [Exit] FABIAN I will not give my part of this sport for a pension of thousands to be paid from the Sophy. SIR TOBY BELCH I could marry this wench for this device. SIR ANDREW So could I too. SIR TOBY BELCH And ask no other dowry with her but such another jest. SIR ANDREW Nor I neither. FABIAN Here comes my noble gull-catcher. [Re-enter MARIA] SIR TOBY BELCH Wilt thou set thy foot o' my neck? SIR ANDREW Or o' mine either? SIR TOBY BELCH Shall I play my freedom at traytrip, and become thy bond-slave? SIR ANDREW I' faith, or I either? SIR TOBY BELCH Why, thou hast put him in such a dream, that when the image of it leaves him he must run mad. MARIA Nay, but say true; does it work upon him? SIR TOBY BELCH Like aqua-vitae with a midwife. MARIA If you will then see the fruits of the sport, mark his first approach before my lady: he will come to her in yellow stockings, and 'tis a colour she abhors, and cross-gartered, a fashion she detests; and he will smile upon her, which will now be so unsuitable to her disposition, being addicted to a melancholy as she is, that it cannot but turn him into a notable contempt. If you will see it, follow me. SIR TOBY BELCH To the gates of Tartar, thou most excellent devil of wit! SIR ANDREW I'll make one too. [Exeunt] TWELFTH NIGHT ACT III SCENE I OLIVIA's garden. [Enter VIOLA, and Clown with a tabour] VIOLA Save thee, friend, and thy music: dost thou live by thy tabour? Clown No, sir, I live by the church. VIOLA Art thou a churchman? Clown No such matter, sir: I do live by the church; for I do live at my house, and my house doth stand by the church. VIOLA So thou mayst say, the king lies by a beggar, if a beggar dwell near him; or, the church stands by thy tabour, if thy tabour stand by the church. Clown You have said, sir. To see this age! A sentence is but a cheveril glove to a good wit: how quickly the wrong side may be turned outward! VIOLA Nay, that's certain; they that dally nicely with words may quickly make them wanton. Clown I would, therefore, my sister had had no name, sir. VIOLA Why, man? Clown Why, sir, her name's a word; and to dally with that word might make my sister wanton. But indeed words are very rascals since bonds disgraced them. VIOLA Thy reason, man? Clown Troth, sir, I can yield you none without words; and words are grown so false, I am loath to prove reason with them. VIOLA I warrant thou art a merry fellow and carest for nothing. Clown Not so, sir, I do care for something; but in my conscience, sir, I do not care for you: if that be to care for nothing, sir, I would it would make you invisible. VIOLA Art not thou the Lady Olivia's fool? Clown No, indeed, sir; the Lady Olivia has no folly: she will keep no fool, sir, till she be married; and fools are as like husbands as pilchards are to herrings; the husband's the bigger: I am indeed not her fool, but her corrupter of words. VIOLA I saw thee late at the Count Orsino's. Clown Foolery, sir, does walk about the orb like the sun, it shines every where. I would be sorry, sir, but the fool should be as oft with your master as with my mistress: I think I saw your wisdom there. VIOLA Nay, an thou pass upon me, I'll no more with thee. Hold, there's expenses for thee. Clown Now Jove, in his next commodity of hair, send thee a beard! VIOLA By my troth, I'll tell thee, I am almost sick for one; [Aside] though I would not have it grow on my chin. Is thy lady within? Clown Would not a pair of these have bred, sir? VIOLA Yes, being kept together and put to use. Clown I would play Lord Pandarus of Phrygia, sir, to bring a Cressida to this Troilus. VIOLA I understand you, sir; 'tis well begged. Clown The matter, I hope, is not great, sir, begging but a beggar: Cressida was a beggar. My lady is within, sir. I will construe to them whence you come; who you are and what you would are out of my welkin, I might say 'element,' but the word is over-worn. [Exit] VIOLA This fellow is wise enough to play the fool; And to do that well craves a kind of wit: He must observe their mood on whom he jests, The quality of persons, and the time, And, like the haggard, cheque at every feather That comes before his eye. This is a practise As full of labour as a wise man's art For folly that he wisely shows is fit; But wise men, folly-fall'n, quite taint their wit. [Enter SIR TOBY BELCH, and SIR ANDREW] SIR TOBY BELCH Save you, gentleman. VIOLA And you, sir. SIR ANDREW Dieu vous garde, monsieur. VIOLA Et vous aussi; votre serviteur. SIR ANDREW I hope, sir, you are; and I am yours. SIR TOBY BELCH Will you encounter the house? my niece is desirous you should enter, if your trade be to her. VIOLA I am bound to your niece, sir; I mean, she is the list of my voyage. SIR TOBY BELCH Taste your legs, sir; put them to motion. VIOLA My legs do better understand me, sir, than I understand what you mean by bidding me taste my legs. SIR TOBY BELCH I mean, to go, sir, to enter. VIOLA I will answer you with gait and entrance. But we are prevented. [Enter OLIVIA and MARIA] Most excellent accomplished lady, the heavens rain odours on you! SIR ANDREW That youth's a rare courtier: 'Rain odours;' well. VIOLA My matter hath no voice, to your own most pregnant and vouchsafed ear. SIR ANDREW 'Odours,' 'pregnant' and 'vouchsafed:' I'll get 'em all three all ready. OLIVIA Let the garden door be shut, and leave me to my hearing. [Exeunt SIR TOBY BELCH, SIR ANDREW, and MARIA] Give me your hand, sir. VIOLA My duty, madam, and most humble service. OLIVIA What is your name? VIOLA Cesario is your servant's name, fair princess. OLIVIA My servant, sir! 'Twas never merry world Since lowly feigning was call'd compliment: You're servant to the Count Orsino, youth. VIOLA And he is yours, and his must needs be yours: Your servant's servant is your servant, madam. OLIVIA For him, I think not on him: for his thoughts, Would they were blanks, rather than fill'd with me! VIOLA Madam, I come to whet your gentle thoughts On his behalf. OLIVIA O, by your leave, I pray you, I bade you never speak again of him: But, would you undertake another suit, I had rather hear you to solicit that Than music from the spheres. VIOLA Dear lady,-- OLIVIA Give me leave, beseech you. I did send, After the last enchantment you did here, A ring in chase of you: so did I abuse Myself, my servant and, I fear me, you: Under your hard construction must I sit, To force that on you, in a shameful cunning, Which you knew none of yours: what might you think? Have you not set mine honour at the stake And baited it with all the unmuzzled thoughts That tyrannous heart can think? To one of your receiving Enough is shown: a cypress, not a bosom, Hideth my heart. So, let me hear you speak. VIOLA I pity you. OLIVIA That's a degree to love. VIOLA No, not a grize; for 'tis a vulgar proof, That very oft we pity enemies. OLIVIA Why, then, methinks 'tis time to smile again. O, world, how apt the poor are to be proud! If one should be a prey, how much the better To fall before the lion than the wolf! [Clock strikes] The clock upbraids me with the waste of time. Be not afraid, good youth, I will not have you: And yet, when wit and youth is come to harvest, Your were is alike to reap a proper man: There lies your way, due west. VIOLA Then westward-ho! Grace and good disposition Attend your ladyship! You'll nothing, madam, to my lord by me? OLIVIA Stay: I prithee, tell me what thou thinkest of me. VIOLA That you do think you are not what you are. OLIVIA If I think so, I think the same of you. VIOLA Then think you right: I am not what I am. OLIVIA I would you were as I would have you be! VIOLA Would it be better, madam, than I am? I wish it might, for now I am your fool. OLIVIA O, what a deal of scorn looks beautiful In the contempt and anger of his lip! A murderous guilt shows not itself more soon Than love that would seem hid: love's night is noon. Cesario, by the roses of the spring, By maidhood, honour, truth and every thing, I love thee so, that, maugre all thy pride, Nor wit nor reason can my passion hide. Do not extort thy reasons from this clause, For that I woo, thou therefore hast no cause, But rather reason thus with reason fetter, Love sought is good, but given unsought better. VIOLA By innocence I swear, and by my youth I have one heart, one bosom and one truth, And that no woman has; nor never none Shall mistress be of it, save I alone. And so adieu, good madam: never more Will I my master's tears to you deplore. OLIVIA Yet come again; for thou perhaps mayst move That heart, which now abhors, to like his love. [Exeunt] TWELFTH NIGHT ACT III SCENE II OLIVIA's house. [Enter SIR TOBY BELCH, SIR ANDREW, and FABIAN] SIR ANDREW No, faith, I'll not stay a jot longer. SIR TOBY BELCH Thy reason, dear venom, give thy reason. FABIAN You must needs yield your reason, Sir Andrew. SIR ANDREW Marry, I saw your niece do more favours to the count's serving-man than ever she bestowed upon me; I saw't i' the orchard. SIR TOBY BELCH Did she see thee the while, old boy? tell me that. SIR ANDREW As plain as I see you now. FABIAN This was a great argument of love in her toward you. SIR ANDREW 'Slight, will you make an ass o' me? FABIAN I will prove it legitimate, sir, upon the oaths of judgment and reason. SIR TOBY BELCH And they have been grand-jury-men since before Noah was a sailor. FABIAN She did show favour to the youth in your sight only to exasperate you, to awake your dormouse valour, to put fire in your heart and brimstone in your liver. You should then have accosted her; and with some excellent jests, fire-new from the mint, you should have banged the youth into dumbness. This was looked for at your hand, and this was balked: the double gilt of this opportunity you let time wash off, and you are now sailed into the north of my lady's opinion; where you will hang like an icicle on a Dutchman's beard, unless you do redeem it by some laudable attempt either of valour or policy. SIR ANDREW An't be any way, it must be with valour; for policy I hate: I had as lief be a Brownist as a politician. SIR TOBY BELCH Why, then, build me thy fortunes upon the basis of valour. Challenge me the count's youth to fight with him; hurt him in eleven places: my niece shall take note of it; and assure thyself, there is no love-broker in the world can more prevail in man's commendation with woman than report of valour. FABIAN There is no way but this, Sir Andrew. SIR ANDREW Will either of you bear me a challenge to him? SIR TOBY BELCH Go, write it in a martial hand; be curst and brief; it is no matter how witty, so it be eloquent and fun of invention: taunt him with the licence of ink: if thou thou'st him some thrice, it shall not be amiss; and as many lies as will lie in thy sheet of paper, although the sheet were big enough for the bed of Ware in England, set 'em down: go, about it. Let there be gall enough in thy ink, though thou write with a goose-pen, no matter: about it. SIR ANDREW Where shall I find you? SIR TOBY BELCH We'll call thee at the cubiculo: go. [Exit SIR ANDREW] FABIAN This is a dear manikin to you, Sir Toby. SIR TOBY BELCH I have been dear to him, lad, some two thousand strong, or so. FABIAN We shall have a rare letter from him: but you'll not deliver't? SIR TOBY BELCH Never trust me, then; and by all means stir on the youth to an answer. I think oxen and wainropes cannot hale them together. For Andrew, if he were opened, and you find so much blood in his liver as will clog the foot of a flea, I'll eat the rest of the anatomy. FABIAN And his opposite, the youth, bears in his visage no great presage of cruelty. [Enter MARIA] SIR TOBY BELCH Look, where the youngest wren of nine comes. MARIA If you desire the spleen, and will laugh yourself into stitches, follow me. Yond gull Malvolio is turned heathen, a very renegado; for there is no Christian, that means to be saved by believing rightly, can ever believe such impossible passages of grossness. He's in yellow stockings. SIR TOBY BELCH And cross-gartered? MARIA Most villanously; like a pedant that keeps a school i' the church. I have dogged him, like his murderer. He does obey every point of the letter that I dropped to betray him: he does smile his face into more lines than is in the new map with the augmentation of the Indies: you have not seen such a thing as 'tis. I can hardly forbear hurling things at him. I know my lady will strike him: if she do, he'll smile and take't for a great favour. SIR TOBY BELCH Come, bring us, bring us where he is. [Exeunt] TWELFTH NIGHT ACT III SCENE III A street. [Enter SEBASTIAN and ANTONIO] SEBASTIAN I would not by my will have troubled you; But, since you make your pleasure of your pains, I will no further chide you. ANTONIO I could not stay behind you: my desire, More sharp than filed steel, did spur me forth; And not all love to see you, though so much As might have drawn one to a longer voyage, But jealousy what might befall your travel, Being skilless in these parts; which to a stranger, Unguided and unfriended, often prove Rough and unhospitable: my willing love, The rather by these arguments of fear, Set forth in your pursuit. SEBASTIAN My kind Antonio, I can no other answer make but thanks, And thanks; and ever [ ] oft good turns Are shuffled off with such uncurrent pay: But, were my worth as is my conscience firm, You should find better dealing. What's to do? Shall we go see the reliques of this town? ANTONIO To-morrow, sir: best first go see your lodging. SEBASTIAN I am not weary, and 'tis long to night: I pray you, let us satisfy our eyes With the memorials and the things of fame That do renown this city. ANTONIO Would you'ld pardon me; I do not without danger walk these streets: Once, in a sea-fight, 'gainst the count his galleys I did some service; of such note indeed, That were I ta'en here it would scarce be answer'd. SEBASTIAN Belike you slew great number of his people. ANTONIO The offence is not of such a bloody nature; Albeit the quality of the time and quarrel Might well have given us bloody argument. It might have since been answer'd in repaying What we took from them; which, for traffic's sake, Most of our city did: only myself stood out; For which, if I be lapsed in this place, I shall pay dear. SEBASTIAN Do not then walk too open. ANTONIO It doth not fit me. Hold, sir, here's my purse. In the south suburbs, at the Elephant, Is best to lodge: I will bespeak our diet, Whiles you beguile the time and feed your knowledge With viewing of the town: there shall you have me. SEBASTIAN Why I your purse? ANTONIO Haply your eye shall light upon some toy You have desire to purchase; and your store, I think, is not for idle markets, sir. SEBASTIAN I'll be your purse-bearer and leave you For an hour. ANTONIO To the Elephant. SEBASTIAN I do remember. [Exeunt] TWELFTH NIGHT ACT III SCENE IV OLIVIA's garden. [Enter OLIVIA and MARIA] OLIVIA I have sent after him: he says he'll come; How shall I feast him? what bestow of him? For youth is bought more oft than begg'd or borrow'd. I speak too loud. Where is Malvolio? he is sad and civil, And suits well for a servant with my fortunes: Where is Malvolio? MARIA He's coming, madam; but in very strange manner. He is, sure, possessed, madam. OLIVIA Why, what's the matter? does he rave? MARIA No. madam, he does nothing but smile: your ladyship were best to have some guard about you, if he come; for, sure, the man is tainted in's wits. OLIVIA Go call him hither. [Exit MARIA] I am as mad as he, If sad and merry madness equal be. [Re-enter MARIA, with MALVOLIO] How now, Malvolio! MALVOLIO Sweet lady, ho, ho. OLIVIA Smilest thou? I sent for thee upon a sad occasion. MALVOLIO Sad, lady! I could be sad: this does make some obstruction in the blood, this cross-gartering; but what of that? if it please the eye of one, it is with me as the very true sonnet is, 'Please one, and please all.' OLIVIA Why, how dost thou, man? what is the matter with thee? MALVOLIO Not black in my mind, though yellow in my legs. It did come to his hands, and commands shall be executed: I think we do know the sweet Roman hand. OLIVIA Wilt thou go to bed, Malvolio? MALVOLIO To bed! ay, sweet-heart, and I'll come to thee. OLIVIA God comfort thee! Why dost thou smile so and kiss thy hand so oft? MARIA How do you, Malvolio? MALVOLIO At your request! yes; nightingales answer daws. MARIA Why appear you with this ridiculous boldness before my lady? MALVOLIO 'Be not afraid of greatness:' 'twas well writ. OLIVIA What meanest thou by that, Malvolio? MALVOLIO 'Some are born great,'-- OLIVIA Ha! MALVOLIO 'Some achieve greatness,'-- OLIVIA What sayest thou? MALVOLIO 'And some have greatness thrust upon them.' OLIVIA Heaven restore thee! MALVOLIO 'Remember who commended thy yellow stockings,'-- OLIVIA Thy yellow stockings! MALVOLIO 'And wished to see thee cross-gartered.' OLIVIA Cross-gartered! MALVOLIO 'Go to thou art made, if thou desirest to be so;'-- OLIVIA Am I made? MALVOLIO 'If not, let me see thee a servant still.' OLIVIA Why, this is very midsummer madness. [Enter Servant] Servant Madam, the young gentleman of the Count Orsino's is returned: I could hardly entreat him back: he attends your ladyship's pleasure. OLIVIA I'll come to him. [Exit Servant] Good Maria, let this fellow be looked to. Where's my cousin Toby? Let some of my people have a special care of him: I would not have him miscarry for the half of my dowry. [Exeunt OLIVIA and MARIA] MALVOLIO O, ho! do you come near me now? no worse man than Sir Toby to look to me! This concurs directly with the letter: she sends him on purpose, that I may appear stubborn to him; for she incites me to that in the letter. 'Cast thy humble slough,' says she; 'be opposite with a kinsman, surly with servants; let thy tongue tang with arguments of state; put thyself into the trick of singularity;' and consequently sets down the manner how; as, a sad face, a reverend carriage, a slow tongue, in the habit of some sir of note, and so forth. I have limed her; but it is Jove's doing, and Jove make me thankful! And when she went away now, 'Let this fellow be looked to:' fellow! not Malvolio, nor after my degree, but fellow. Why, every thing adheres together, that no dram of a scruple, no scruple of a scruple, no obstacle, no incredulous or unsafe circumstance--What can be said? Nothing that can be can come between me and the full prospect of my hopes. Well, Jove, not I, is the doer of this, and he is to be thanked. [Re-enter MARIA, with SIR TOBY BELCH and FABIAN] SIR TOBY BELCH Which way is he, in the name of sanctity? If all the devils of hell be drawn in little, and Legion himself possessed him, yet I'll speak to him. FABIAN Here he is, here he is. How is't with you, sir? how is't with you, man? MALVOLIO Go off; I discard you: let me enjoy my private: go off. MARIA Lo, how hollow the fiend speaks within him! did not I tell you? Sir Toby, my lady prays you to have a care of him. MALVOLIO Ah, ha! does she so? SIR TOBY BELCH Go to, go to; peace, peace; we must deal gently with him: let me alone. How do you, Malvolio? how is't with you? What, man! defy the devil: consider, he's an enemy to mankind. MALVOLIO Do you know what you say? MARIA La you, an you speak ill of the devil, how he takes it at heart! Pray God, he be not bewitched! FABIAN Carry his water to the wise woman. MARIA Marry, and it shall be done to-morrow morning, if I live. My lady would not lose him for more than I'll say. MALVOLIO How now, mistress! MARIA O Lord! SIR TOBY BELCH Prithee, hold thy peace; this is not the way: do you not see you move him? let me alone with him. FABIAN No way but gentleness; gently, gently: the fiend is rough, and will not be roughly used. SIR TOBY BELCH Why, how now, my bawcock! how dost thou, chuck? MALVOLIO Sir! SIR TOBY BELCH Ay, Biddy, come with me. What, man! 'tis not for gravity to play at cherry-pit with Satan: hang him, foul collier! MARIA Get him to say his prayers, good Sir Toby, get him to pray. MALVOLIO My prayers, minx! MARIA No, I warrant you, he will not hear of godliness. MALVOLIO Go, hang yourselves all! you are idle shallow things: I am not of your element: you shall know more hereafter. [Exit] SIR TOBY BELCH Is't possible? FABIAN If this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction. SIR TOBY BELCH His very genius hath taken the infection of the device, man. MARIA Nay, pursue him now, lest the device take air and taint. FABIAN Why, we shall make him mad indeed. MARIA The house will be the quieter. SIR TOBY BELCH Come, we'll have him in a dark room and bound. My niece is already in the belief that he's mad: we may carry it thus, for our pleasure and his penance, till our very pastime, tired out of breath, prompt us to have mercy on him: at which time we will bring the device to the bar and crown thee for a finder of madmen. But see, but see. [Enter SIR ANDREW] FABIAN More matter for a May morning. SIR ANDREW Here's the challenge, read it: warrant there's vinegar and pepper in't. FABIAN Is't so saucy? SIR ANDREW Ay, is't, I warrant him: do but read. SIR TOBY BELCH Give me. [Reads] 'Youth, whatsoever thou art, thou art but a scurvy fellow.' FABIAN Good, and valiant. SIR TOBY BELCH [Reads] 'Wonder not, nor admire not in thy mind, why I do call thee so, for I will show thee no reason for't.' FABIAN A good note; that keeps you from the blow of the law. SIR TOBY BELCH [Reads] 'Thou comest to the lady Olivia, and in my sight she uses thee kindly: but thou liest in thy throat; that is not the matter I challenge thee for.' FABIAN Very brief, and to exceeding good sense--less. SIR TOBY BELCH [Reads] 'I will waylay thee going home; where if it be thy chance to kill me,'-- FABIAN Good. SIR TOBY BELCH [Reads] 'Thou killest me like a rogue and a villain.' FABIAN Still you keep o' the windy side of the law: good. SIR TOBY BELCH [Reads] 'Fare thee well; and God have mercy upon one of our souls! He may have mercy upon mine; but my hope is better, and so look to thyself. Thy friend, as thou usest him, and thy sworn enemy, ANDREW AGUECHEEK. If this letter move him not, his legs cannot: I'll give't him. MARIA You may have very fit occasion for't: he is now in some commerce with my lady, and will by and by depart. SIR TOBY BELCH Go, Sir Andrew: scout me for him at the corner the orchard like a bum-baily: so soon as ever thou seest him, draw; and, as thou drawest swear horrible; for it comes to pass oft that a terrible oath, with a swaggering accent sharply twanged off, gives manhood more approbation than ever proof itself would have earned him. Away! SIR ANDREW Nay, let me alone for swearing. [Exit] SIR TOBY BELCH Now will not I deliver his letter: for the behavior of the young gentleman gives him out to be of good capacity and breeding; his employment between his lord and my niece confirms no less: therefore this letter, being so excellently ignorant, will breed no terror in the youth: he will find it comes from a clodpole. But, sir, I will deliver his challenge by word of mouth; set upon Aguecheek a notable report of valour; and drive the gentleman, as I know his youth will aptly receive it, into a most hideous opinion of his rage, skill, fury and impetuosity. This will so fright them both that they will kill one another by the look, like cockatrices. [Re-enter OLIVIA, with VIOLA] FABIAN Here he comes with your niece: give them way till he take leave, and presently after him. SIR TOBY BELCH I will meditate the while upon some horrid message for a challenge. [Exeunt SIR TOBY BELCH, FABIAN, and MARIA] OLIVIA I have said too much unto a heart of stone And laid mine honour too unchary out: There's something in me that reproves my fault; But such a headstrong potent fault it is, That it but mocks reproof. VIOLA With the same 'havior that your passion bears Goes on my master's grief. OLIVIA Here, wear this jewel for me, 'tis my picture; Refuse it not; it hath no tongue to vex you; And I beseech you come again to-morrow. What shall you ask of me that I'll deny, That honour saved may upon asking give? VIOLA Nothing but this; your true love for my master. OLIVIA How with mine honour may I give him that Which I have given to you? VIOLA I will acquit you. OLIVIA Well, come again to-morrow: fare thee well: A fiend like thee might bear my soul to hell. [Exit] [Re-enter SIR TOBY BELCH and FABIAN] SIR TOBY BELCH Gentleman, God save thee. VIOLA And you, sir. SIR TOBY BELCH That defence thou hast, betake thee to't: of what nature the wrongs are thou hast done him, I know not; but thy intercepter, full of despite, bloody as the hunter, attends thee at the orchard-end: dismount thy tuck, be yare in thy preparation, for thy assailant is quick, skilful and deadly. VIOLA You mistake, sir; I am sure no man hath any quarrel to me: my remembrance is very free and clear from any image of offence done to any man. SIR TOBY BELCH You'll find it otherwise, I assure you: therefore, if you hold your life at any price, betake you to your guard; for your opposite hath in him what youth, strength, skill and wrath can furnish man withal. VIOLA I pray you, sir, what is he? SIR TOBY BELCH He is knight, dubbed with unhatched rapier and on carpet consideration; but he is a devil in private brawl: souls and bodies hath he divorced three; and his incensement at this moment is so implacable, that satisfaction can be none but by pangs of death and sepulchre. Hob, nob, is his word; give't or take't. VIOLA I will return again into the house and desire some conduct of the lady. I am no fighter. I have heard of some kind of men that put quarrels purposely on others, to taste their valour: belike this is a man of that quirk. SIR TOBY BELCH Sir, no; his indignation derives itself out of a very competent injury: therefore, get you on and give him his desire. Back you shall not to the house, unless you undertake that with me which with as much safety you might answer him: therefore, on, or strip your sword stark naked; for meddle you must, that's certain, or forswear to wear iron about you. VIOLA This is as uncivil as strange. I beseech you, do me this courteous office, as to know of the knight what my offence to him is: it is something of my negligence, nothing of my purpose. SIR TOBY BELCH I will do so. Signior Fabian, stay you by this gentleman till my return. [Exit] VIOLA Pray you, sir, do you know of this matter? FABIAN I know the knight is incensed against you, even to a mortal arbitrement; but nothing of the circumstance more. VIOLA I beseech you, what manner of man is he? FABIAN Nothing of that wonderful promise, to read him by his form, as you are like to find him in the proof of his valour. He is, indeed, sir, the most skilful, bloody and fatal opposite that you could possibly have found in any part of Illyria. Will you walk towards him? I will make your peace with him if I can. VIOLA I shall be much bound to you for't: I am one that had rather go with sir priest than sir knight: I care not who knows so much of my mettle. [Exeunt] [Re-enter SIR TOBY BELCH, with SIR ANDREW] SIR TOBY BELCH Why, man, he's a very devil; I have not seen such a firago. I had a pass with him, rapier, scabbard and all, and he gives me the stuck in with such a mortal motion, that it is inevitable; and on the answer, he pays you as surely as your feet hit the ground they step on. They say he has been fencer to the Sophy. SIR ANDREW Pox on't, I'll not meddle with him. SIR TOBY BELCH Ay, but he will not now be pacified: Fabian can scarce hold him yonder. SIR ANDREW Plague on't, an I thought he had been valiant and so cunning in fence, I'ld have seen him damned ere I'ld have challenged him. Let him let the matter slip, and I'll give him my horse, grey Capilet. SIR TOBY BELCH I'll make the motion: stand here, make a good show on't: this shall end without the perdition of souls. [Aside] Marry, I'll ride your horse as well as I ride you. [Re-enter FABIAN and VIOLA] [To FABIAN] I have his horse to take up the quarrel: I have persuaded him the youth's a devil. FABIAN He is as horribly conceited of him; and pants and looks pale, as if a bear were at his heels. SIR TOBY BELCH [To VIOLA] There's no remedy, sir; he will fight with you for's oath sake: marry, he hath better bethought him of his quarrel, and he finds that now scarce to be worth talking of: therefore draw, for the supportance of his vow; he protests he will not hurt you. VIOLA [Aside] Pray God defend me! A little thing would make me tell them how much I lack of a man. FABIAN Give ground, if you see him furious. SIR TOBY BELCH Come, Sir Andrew, there's no remedy; the gentleman will, for his honour's sake, have one bout with you; he cannot by the duello avoid it: but he has promised me, as he is a gentleman and a soldier, he will not hurt you. Come on; to't. SIR ANDREW Pray God, he keep his oath! VIOLA I do assure you, 'tis against my will. [They draw] [Enter ANTONIO] ANTONIO Put up your sword. If this young gentleman Have done offence, I take the fault on me: If you offend him, I for him defy you. SIR TOBY BELCH You, sir! why, what are you? ANTONIO One, sir, that for his love dares yet do more Than you have heard him brag to you he will. SIR TOBY BELCH Nay, if you be an undertaker, I am for you. [They draw] [Enter Officers] FABIAN O good Sir Toby, hold! here come the officers. SIR TOBY BELCH I'll be with you anon. VIOLA Pray, sir, put your sword up, if you please. SIR ANDREW Marry, will I, sir; and, for that I promised you, I'll be as good as my word: he will bear you easily and reins well. First Officer This is the man; do thy office. Second Officer Antonio, I arrest thee at the suit of Count Orsino. ANTONIO You do mistake me, sir. First Officer No, sir, no jot; I know your favour well, Though now you have no sea-cap on your head. Take him away: he knows I know him well. ANTONIO I must obey. [To VIOLA] This comes with seeking you: But there's no remedy; I shall answer it. What will you do, now my necessity Makes me to ask you for my purse? It grieves me Much more for what I cannot do for you Than what befalls myself. You stand amazed; But be of comfort. Second Officer Come, sir, away. ANTONIO I must entreat of you some of that money. VIOLA What money, sir? For the fair kindness you have show'd me here, And, part, being prompted by your present trouble, Out of my lean and low ability I'll lend you something: my having is not much; I'll make division of my present with you: Hold, there's half my coffer. ANTONIO Will you deny me now? Is't possible that my deserts to you Can lack persuasion? Do not tempt my misery, Lest that it make me so unsound a man As to upbraid you with those kindnesses That I have done for you. VIOLA I know of none; Nor know I you by voice or any feature: I hate ingratitude more in a man Than lying, vainness, babbling, drunkenness, Or any taint of vice whose strong corruption Inhabits our frail blood. ANTONIO O heavens themselves! Second Officer Come, sir, I pray you, go. ANTONIO Let me speak a little. This youth that you see here I snatch'd one half out of the jaws of death, Relieved him with such sanctity of love, And to his image, which methought did promise Most venerable worth, did I devotion. First Officer What's that to us? The time goes by: away! ANTONIO But O how vile an idol proves this god Thou hast, Sebastian, done good feature shame. In nature there's no blemish but the mind; None can be call'd deform'd but the unkind: Virtue is beauty, but the beauteous evil Are empty trunks o'erflourish'd by the devil. First Officer The man grows mad: away with him! Come, come, sir. ANTONIO Lead me on. [Exit with Officers] VIOLA Methinks his words do from such passion fly, That he believes himself: so do not I. Prove true, imagination, O, prove true, That I, dear brother, be now ta'en for you! SIR TOBY BELCH Come hither, knight; come hither, Fabian: we'll whisper o'er a couplet or two of most sage saws. VIOLA He named Sebastian: I my brother know Yet living in my glass; even such and so In favour was my brother, and he went Still in this fashion, colour, ornament, For him I imitate: O, if it prove, Tempests are kind and salt waves fresh in love. [Exit] SIR TOBY BELCH A very dishonest paltry boy, and more a coward than a hare: his dishonesty appears in leaving his friend here in necessity and denying him; and for his cowardship, ask Fabian. FABIAN A coward, a most devout coward, religious in it. SIR ANDREW 'Slid, I'll after him again and beat him. SIR TOBY BELCH Do; cuff him soundly, but never draw thy sword. SIR ANDREW An I do not,-- FABIAN Come, let's see the event. SIR TOBY BELCH I dare lay any money 'twill be nothing yet. [Exeunt] TWELFTH NIGHT ACT IV SCENE I Before OLIVIA's house. [Enter SEBASTIAN and Clown] Clown Will you make me believe that I am not sent for you? SEBASTIAN Go to, go to, thou art a foolish fellow: Let me be clear of thee. Clown Well held out, i' faith! No, I do not know you; nor I am not sent to you by my lady, to bid you come speak with her; nor your name is not Master Cesario; nor this is not my nose neither. Nothing that is so is so. SEBASTIAN I prithee, vent thy folly somewhere else: Thou know'st not me. Clown Vent my folly! he has heard that word of some great man and now applies it to a fool. Vent my folly! I am afraid this great lubber, the world, will prove a cockney. I prithee now, ungird thy strangeness and tell me what I shall vent to my lady: shall I vent to her that thou art coming? SEBASTIAN I prithee, foolish Greek, depart from me: There's money for thee: if you tarry longer, I shall give worse payment. Clown By my troth, thou hast an open hand. These wise men that give fools money get themselves a good report--after fourteen years' purchase. [Enter SIR ANDREW, SIR TOBY BELCH, and FABIAN] SIR ANDREW Now, sir, have I met you again? there's for you. SEBASTIAN Why, there's for thee, and there, and there. Are all the people mad? SIR TOBY BELCH Hold, sir, or I'll throw your dagger o'er the house. Clown This will I tell my lady straight: I would not be in some of your coats for two pence. [Exit] SIR TOBY BELCH Come on, sir; hold. SIR ANDREW Nay, let him alone: I'll go another way to work with him; I'll have an action of battery against him, if there be any law in Illyria: though I struck him first, yet it's no matter for that. SEBASTIAN Let go thy hand. SIR TOBY BELCH Come, sir, I will not let you go. Come, my young soldier, put up your iron: you are well fleshed; come on. SEBASTIAN I will be free from thee. What wouldst thou now? If thou darest tempt me further, draw thy sword. SIR TOBY BELCH What, what? Nay, then I must have an ounce or two of this malapert blood from you. [Enter OLIVIA] OLIVIA Hold, Toby; on thy life I charge thee, hold! SIR TOBY BELCH Madam! OLIVIA Will it be ever thus? Ungracious wretch, Fit for the mountains and the barbarous caves, Where manners ne'er were preach'd! out of my sight! Be not offended, dear Cesario. Rudesby, be gone! [Exeunt SIR TOBY BELCH, SIR ANDREW, and FABIAN] I prithee, gentle friend, Let thy fair wisdom, not thy passion, sway In this uncivil and thou unjust extent Against thy peace. Go with me to my house, And hear thou there how many fruitless pranks This ruffian hath botch'd up, that thou thereby Mayst smile at this: thou shalt not choose but go: Do not deny. Beshrew his soul for me, He started one poor heart of mine in thee. SEBASTIAN What relish is in this? how runs the stream? Or I am mad, or else this is a dream: Let fancy still my sense in Lethe steep; If it be thus to dream, still let me sleep! OLIVIA Nay, come, I prithee; would thou'ldst be ruled by me! SEBASTIAN Madam, I will. OLIVIA O, say so, and so be! [Exeunt] TWELFTH NIGHT ACT IV SCENE II OLIVIA's house. [Enter MARIA and Clown] MARIA Nay, I prithee, put on this gown and this beard; make him believe thou art Sir Topas the curate: do it quickly; I'll call Sir Toby the whilst. [Exit] Clown Well, I'll put it on, and I will dissemble myself in't; and I would I were the first that ever dissembled in such a gown. I am not tall enough to become the function well, nor lean enough to be thought a good student; but to be said an honest man and a good housekeeper goes as fairly as to say a careful man and a great scholar. The competitors enter. [Enter SIR TOBY BELCH and MARIA] SIR TOBY BELCH Jove bless thee, master Parson. Clown Bonos dies, Sir Toby: for, as the old hermit of Prague, that never saw pen and ink, very wittily said to a niece of King Gorboduc, 'That that is is;' so I, being Master Parson, am Master Parson; for, what is 'that' but 'that,' and 'is' but 'is'? SIR TOBY BELCH To him, Sir Topas. Clown What, ho, I say! peace in this prison! SIR TOBY BELCH The knave counterfeits well; a good knave. MALVOLIO [Within] Who calls there? Clown Sir Topas the curate, who comes to visit Malvolio the lunatic. MALVOLIO Sir Topas, Sir Topas, good Sir Topas, go to my lady. Clown Out, hyperbolical fiend! how vexest thou this man! talkest thou nothing but of ladies? SIR TOBY BELCH Well said, Master Parson. MALVOLIO Sir Topas, never was man thus wronged: good Sir Topas, do not think I am mad: they have laid me here in hideous darkness. Clown Fie, thou dishonest Satan! I call thee by the most modest terms; for I am one of those gentle ones that will use the devil himself with courtesy: sayest thou that house is dark? MALVOLIO As hell, Sir Topas. Clown Why it hath bay windows transparent as barricadoes, and the clearstores toward the south north are as lustrous as ebony; and yet complainest thou of obstruction? MALVOLIO I am not mad, Sir Topas: I say to you, this house is dark. Clown Madman, thou errest: I say, there is no darkness but ignorance; in which thou art more puzzled than the Egyptians in their fog. MALVOLIO I say, this house is as dark as ignorance, though ignorance were as dark as hell; and I say, there was never man thus abused. I am no more mad than you are: make the trial of it in any constant question. Clown What is the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wild fowl? MALVOLIO That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit a bird. Clown What thinkest thou of his opinion? MALVOLIO I think nobly of the soul, and no way approve his opinion. Clown Fare thee well. Remain thou still in darkness: thou shalt hold the opinion of Pythagoras ere I will allow of thy wits, and fear to kill a woodcock, lest thou dispossess the soul of thy grandam. Fare thee well. MALVOLIO Sir Topas, Sir Topas! SIR TOBY BELCH My most exquisite Sir Topas! Clown Nay, I am for all waters. MARIA Thou mightst have done this without thy beard and gown: he sees thee not. SIR TOBY BELCH To him in thine own voice, and bring me word how thou findest him: I would we were well rid of this knavery. If he may be conveniently delivered, I would he were, for I am now so far in offence with my niece that I cannot pursue with any safety this sport to the upshot. Come by and by to my chamber. [Exeunt SIR TOBY BELCH and MARIA] Clown [Singing] 'Hey, Robin, jolly Robin, Tell me how thy lady does.' MALVOLIO Fool! Clown 'My lady is unkind, perdy.' MALVOLIO Fool! Clown 'Alas, why is she so?' MALVOLIO Fool, I say! Clown 'She loves another'--Who calls, ha? MALVOLIO Good fool, as ever thou wilt deserve well at my hand, help me to a candle, and pen, ink and paper: as I am a gentleman, I will live to be thankful to thee for't. Clown Master Malvolio? MALVOLIO Ay, good fool. Clown Alas, sir, how fell you besides your five wits? MALVOLIO Fool, there was never a man so notoriously abused: I am as well in my wits, fool, as thou art. Clown But as well? then you are mad indeed, if you be no better in your wits than a fool. MALVOLIO They have here propertied me; keep me in darkness, send ministers to me, asses, and do all they can to face me out of my wits. Clown Advise you what you say; the minister is here. Malvolio, Malvolio, thy wits the heavens restore! endeavour thyself to sleep, and leave thy vain bibble babble. MALVOLIO Sir Topas! Clown Maintain no words with him, good fellow. Who, I, sir? not I, sir. God be wi' you, good Sir Topas. Merry, amen. I will, sir, I will. MALVOLIO Fool, fool, fool, I say! Clown Alas, sir, be patient. What say you sir? I am shent for speaking to you. MALVOLIO Good fool, help me to some light and some paper: I tell thee, I am as well in my wits as any man in Illyria. Clown Well-a-day that you were, sir MALVOLIO By this hand, I am. Good fool, some ink, paper and light; and convey what I will set down to my lady: it shall advantage thee more than ever the bearing of letter did. Clown I will help you to't. But tell me true, are you not mad indeed? or do you but counterfeit? MALVOLIO Believe me, I am not; I tell thee true. Clown Nay, I'll ne'er believe a madman till I see his brains. I will fetch you light and paper and ink. MALVOLIO Fool, I'll requite it in the highest degree: I prithee, be gone. Clown [Singing] I am gone, sir, And anon, sir, I'll be with you again, In a trice, Like to the old Vice, Your need to sustain; Who, with dagger of lath, In his rage and his wrath, Cries, ah, ha! to the devil: Like a mad lad, Pare thy nails, dad; Adieu, good man devil. [Exit] TWELFTH NIGHT ACT IV SCENE III OLIVIA's garden. [Enter SEBASTIAN] SEBASTIAN This is the air; that is the glorious sun; This pearl she gave me, I do feel't and see't; And though 'tis wonder that enwraps me thus, Yet 'tis not madness. Where's Antonio, then? I could not find him at the Elephant: Yet there he was; and there I found this credit, That he did range the town to seek me out. His counsel now might do me golden service; For though my soul disputes well with my sense, That this may be some error, but no madness, Yet doth this accident and flood of fortune So far exceed all instance, all discourse, That I am ready to distrust mine eyes And wrangle with my reason that persuades me To any other trust but that I am mad Or else the lady's mad; yet, if 'twere so, She could not sway her house, command her followers, Take and give back affairs and their dispatch With such a smooth, discreet and stable bearing As I perceive she does: there's something in't That is deceiveable. But here the lady comes. [Enter OLIVIA and Priest] OLIVIA Blame not this haste of mine. If you mean well, Now go with me and with this holy man Into the chantry by: there, before him, And underneath that consecrated roof, Plight me the full assurance of your faith; That my most jealous and too doubtful soul May live at peace. He shall conceal it Whiles you are willing it shall come to note, What time we will our celebration keep According to my birth. What do you say? SEBASTIAN I'll follow this good man, and go with you; And, having sworn truth, ever will be true. OLIVIA Then lead the way, good father; and heavens so shine, That they may fairly note this act of mine! [Exeunt] TWELFTH NIGHT ACT V SCENE I Before OLIVIA's house. [Enter Clown and FABIAN] FABIAN Now, as thou lovest me, let me see his letter. Clown Good Master Fabian, grant me another request. FABIAN Any thing. Clown Do not desire to see this letter. FABIAN This is, to give a dog, and in recompense desire my dog again. [Enter DUKE ORSINO, VIOLA, CURIO, and Lords] DUKE ORSINO Belong you to the Lady Olivia, friends? Clown Ay, sir; we are some of her trappings. DUKE ORSINO I know thee well; how dost thou, my good fellow? Clown Truly, sir, the better for my foes and the worse for my friends. DUKE ORSINO Just the contrary; the better for thy friends. Clown No, sir, the worse. DUKE ORSINO How can that be? Clown Marry, sir, they praise me and make an ass of me; now my foes tell me plainly I am an ass: so that by my foes, sir I profit in the knowledge of myself, and by my friends, I am abused: so that, conclusions to be as kisses, if your four negatives make your two affirmatives why then, the worse for my friends and the better for my foes. DUKE ORSINO Why, this is excellent. Clown By my troth, sir, no; though it please you to be one of my friends. DUKE ORSINO Thou shalt not be the worse for me: there's gold. Clown But that it would be double-dealing, sir, I would you could make it another. DUKE ORSINO O, you give me ill counsel. Clown Put your grace in your pocket, sir, for this once, and let your flesh and blood obey it. DUKE ORSINO Well, I will be so much a sinner, to be a double-dealer: there's another. Clown Primo, secundo, tertio, is a good play; and the old saying is, the third pays for all: the triplex, sir, is a good tripping measure; or the bells of Saint Bennet, sir, may put you in mind; one, two, three. DUKE ORSINO You can fool no more money out of me at this throw: if you will let your lady know I am here to speak with her, and bring her along with you, it may awake my bounty further. Clown Marry, sir, lullaby to your bounty till I come again. I go, sir; but I would not have you to think that my desire of having is the sin of covetousness: but, as you say, sir, let your bounty take a nap, I will awake it anon. [Exit] VIOLA Here comes the man, sir, that did rescue me. [Enter ANTONIO and Officers] DUKE ORSINO That face of his I do remember well; Yet, when I saw it last, it was besmear'd As black as Vulcan in the smoke of war: A bawbling vessel was he captain of, For shallow draught and bulk unprizable; With which such scathful grapple did he make With the most noble bottom of our fleet, That very envy and the tongue of loss Cried fame and honour on him. What's the matter? First Officer Orsino, this is that Antonio That took the Phoenix and her fraught from Candy; And this is he that did the Tiger board, When your young nephew Titus lost his leg: Here in the streets, desperate of shame and state, In private brabble did we apprehend him. VIOLA He did me kindness, sir, drew on my side; But in conclusion put strange speech upon me: I know not what 'twas but distraction. DUKE ORSINO Notable pirate! thou salt-water thief! What foolish boldness brought thee to their mercies, Whom thou, in terms so bloody and so dear, Hast made thine enemies? ANTONIO Orsino, noble sir, Be pleased that I shake off these names you give me: Antonio never yet was thief or pirate, Though I confess, on base and ground enough, Orsino's enemy. A witchcraft drew me hither: That most ingrateful boy there by your side, From the rude sea's enraged and foamy mouth Did I redeem; a wreck past hope he was: His life I gave him and did thereto add My love, without retention or restraint, All his in dedication; for his sake Did I expose myself, pure for his love, Into the danger of this adverse town; Drew to defend him when he was beset: Where being apprehended, his false cunning, Not meaning to partake with me in danger, Taught him to face me out of his acquaintance, And grew a twenty years removed thing While one would wink; denied me mine own purse, Which I had recommended to his use Not half an hour before. VIOLA How can this be? DUKE ORSINO When came he to this town? ANTONIO To-day, my lord; and for three months before, No interim, not a minute's vacancy, Both day and night did we keep company. [Enter OLIVIA and Attendants] DUKE ORSINO Here comes the countess: now heaven walks on earth. But for thee, fellow; fellow, thy words are madness: Three months this youth hath tended upon me; But more of that anon. Take him aside. OLIVIA What would my lord, but that he may not have, Wherein Olivia may seem serviceable? Cesario, you do not keep promise with me. VIOLA Madam! DUKE ORSINO Gracious Olivia,-- OLIVIA What do you say, Cesario? Good my lord,-- VIOLA My lord would speak; my duty hushes me. OLIVIA If it be aught to the old tune, my lord, It is as fat and fulsome to mine ear As howling after music. DUKE ORSINO Still so cruel? OLIVIA Still so constant, lord. DUKE ORSINO What, to perverseness? you uncivil lady, To whose ingrate and unauspicious altars My soul the faithfull'st offerings hath breathed out That e'er devotion tender'd! What shall I do? OLIVIA Even what it please my lord, that shall become him. DUKE ORSINO Why should I not, had I the heart to do it, Like to the Egyptian thief at point of death, Kill what I love?--a savage jealousy That sometimes savours nobly. But hear me this: Since you to non-regardance cast my faith, And that I partly know the instrument That screws me from my true place in your favour, Live you the marble-breasted tyrant still; But this your minion, whom I know you love, And whom, by heaven I swear, I tender dearly, Him will I tear out of that cruel eye, Where he sits crowned in his master's spite. Come, boy, with me; my thoughts are ripe in mischief: I'll sacrifice the lamb that I do love, To spite a raven's heart within a dove. VIOLA And I, most jocund, apt and willingly, To do you rest, a thousand deaths would die. OLIVIA Where goes Cesario? VIOLA After him I love More than I love these eyes, more than my life, More, by all mores, than e'er I shall love wife. If I do feign, you witnesses above Punish my life for tainting of my love! OLIVIA Ay me, detested! how am I beguiled! VIOLA Who does beguile you? who does do you wrong? OLIVIA Hast thou forgot thyself? is it so long? Call forth the holy father. DUKE ORSINO Come, away! OLIVIA Whither, my lord? Cesario, husband, stay. DUKE ORSINO Husband! OLIVIA Ay, husband: can he that deny? DUKE ORSINO Her husband, sirrah! VIOLA No, my lord, not I. OLIVIA Alas, it is the baseness of thy fear That makes thee strangle thy propriety: Fear not, Cesario; take thy fortunes up; Be that thou know'st thou art, and then thou art As great as that thou fear'st. [Enter Priest] O, welcome, father! Father, I charge thee, by thy reverence, Here to unfold, though lately we intended To keep in darkness what occasion now Reveals before 'tis ripe, what thou dost know Hath newly pass'd between this youth and me. Priest A contract of eternal bond of love, Confirm'd by mutual joinder of your hands, Attested by the holy close of lips, Strengthen'd by interchangement of your rings; And all the ceremony of this compact Seal'd in my function, by my testimony: Since when, my watch hath told me, toward my grave I have travell'd but two hours. DUKE ORSINO O thou dissembling cub! what wilt thou be When time hath sow'd a grizzle on thy case? Or will not else thy craft so quickly grow, That thine own trip shall be thine overthrow? Farewell, and take her; but direct thy feet Where thou and I henceforth may never meet. VIOLA My lord, I do protest-- OLIVIA O, do not swear! Hold little faith, though thou hast too much fear. [Enter SIR ANDREW] SIR ANDREW For the love of God, a surgeon! Send one presently to Sir Toby. OLIVIA What's the matter? SIR ANDREW He has broke my head across and has given Sir Toby a bloody coxcomb too: for the love of God, your help! I had rather than forty pound I were at home. OLIVIA Who has done this, Sir Andrew? SIR ANDREW The count's gentleman, one Cesario: we took him for a coward, but he's the very devil incardinate. DUKE ORSINO My gentleman, Cesario? SIR ANDREW 'Od's lifelings, here he is! You broke my head for nothing; and that that I did, I was set on to do't by Sir Toby. VIOLA Why do you speak to me? I never hurt you: You drew your sword upon me without cause; But I bespoke you fair, and hurt you not. SIR ANDREW If a bloody coxcomb be a hurt, you have hurt me: I think you set nothing by a bloody coxcomb. [Enter SIR TOBY BELCH and Clown] Here comes Sir Toby halting; you shall hear more: but if he had not been in drink, he would have tickled you othergates than he did. DUKE ORSINO How now, gentleman! how is't with you? SIR TOBY BELCH That's all one: has hurt me, and there's the end on't. Sot, didst see Dick surgeon, sot? Clown O, he's drunk, Sir Toby, an hour agone; his eyes were set at eight i' the morning. SIR TOBY BELCH Then he's a rogue, and a passy measures panyn: I hate a drunken rogue. OLIVIA Away with him! Who hath made this havoc with them? SIR ANDREW I'll help you, Sir Toby, because well be dressed together. SIR TOBY BELCH Will you help? an ass-head and a coxcomb and a knave, a thin-faced knave, a gull! OLIVIA Get him to bed, and let his hurt be look'd to. [Exeunt Clown, FABIAN, SIR TOBY BELCH, and SIR ANDREW] [Enter SEBASTIAN] SEBASTIAN I am sorry, madam, I have hurt your kinsman: But, had it been the brother of my blood, I must have done no less with wit and safety. You throw a strange regard upon me, and by that I do perceive it hath offended you: Pardon me, sweet one, even for the vows We made each other but so late ago. DUKE ORSINO One face, one voice, one habit, and two persons, A natural perspective, that is and is not! SEBASTIAN Antonio, O my dear Antonio! How have the hours rack'd and tortured me, Since I have lost thee! ANTONIO Sebastian are you? SEBASTIAN Fear'st thou that, Antonio? ANTONIO How have you made division of yourself? An apple, cleft in two, is not more twin Than these two creatures. Which is Sebastian? OLIVIA Most wonderful! SEBASTIAN Do I stand there? I never had a brother; Nor can there be that deity in my nature, Of here and every where. I had a sister, Whom the blind waves and surges have devour'd. Of charity, what kin are you to me? What countryman? what name? what parentage? VIOLA Of Messaline: Sebastian was my father; Such a Sebastian was my brother too, So went he suited to his watery tomb: If spirits can assume both form and suit You come to fright us. SEBASTIAN A spirit I am indeed; But am in that dimension grossly clad Which from the womb I did participate. Were you a woman, as the rest goes even, I should my tears let fall upon your cheek, And say 'Thrice-welcome, drowned Viola!' VIOLA My father had a mole upon his brow. SEBASTIAN And so had mine. VIOLA And died that day when Viola from her birth Had number'd thirteen years. SEBASTIAN O, that record is lively in my soul! He finished indeed his mortal act That day that made my sister thirteen years. VIOLA If nothing lets to make us happy both But this my masculine usurp'd attire, Do not embrace me till each circumstance Of place, time, fortune, do cohere and jump That I am Viola: which to confirm, I'll bring you to a captain in this town, Where lie my maiden weeds; by whose gentle help I was preserved to serve this noble count. All the occurrence of my fortune since Hath been between this lady and this lord. SEBASTIAN [To OLIVIA] So comes it, lady, you have been mistook: But nature to her bias drew in that. You would have been contracted to a maid; Nor are you therein, by my life, deceived, You are betroth'd both to a maid and man. DUKE ORSINO Be not amazed; right noble is his blood. If this be so, as yet the glass seems true, I shall have share in this most happy wreck. [To VIOLA] Boy, thou hast said to me a thousand times Thou never shouldst love woman like to me. VIOLA And all those sayings will I overswear; And those swearings keep as true in soul As doth that orbed continent the fire That severs day from night. DUKE ORSINO Give me thy hand; And let me see thee in thy woman's weeds. VIOLA The captain that did bring me first on shore Hath my maid's garments: he upon some action Is now in durance, at Malvolio's suit, A gentleman, and follower of my lady's. OLIVIA He shall enlarge him: fetch Malvolio hither: And yet, alas, now I remember me, They say, poor gentleman, he's much distract. [Re-enter Clown with a letter, and FABIAN] A most extracting frenzy of mine own From my remembrance clearly banish'd his. How does he, sirrah? Clown Truly, madam, he holds Belzebub at the staves's end as well as a man in his case may do: has here writ a letter to you; I should have given't you to-day morning, but as a madman's epistles are no gospels, so it skills not much when they are delivered. OLIVIA Open't, and read it. Clown Look then to be well edified when the fool delivers the madman. [Reads] 'By the Lord, madam,'-- OLIVIA How now! art thou mad? Clown No, madam, I do but read madness: an your ladyship will have it as it ought to be, you must allow Vox. OLIVIA Prithee, read i' thy right wits. Clown So I do, madonna; but to read his right wits is to read thus: therefore perpend, my princess, and give ear. OLIVIA Read it you, sirrah. [To FABIAN] FABIAN [Reads] 'By the Lord, madam, you wrong me, and the world shall know it: though you have put me into darkness and given your drunken cousin rule over me, yet have I the benefit of my senses as well as your ladyship. I have your own letter that induced me to the semblance I put on; with the which I doubt not but to do myself much right, or you much shame. Think of me as you please. I leave my duty a little unthought of and speak out of my injury. THE MADLY-USED MALVOLIO.' OLIVIA Did he write this? Clown Ay, madam. DUKE ORSINO This savours not much of distraction. OLIVIA See him deliver'd, Fabian; bring him hither. [Exit FABIAN] My lord so please you, these things further thought on, To think me as well a sister as a wife, One day shall crown the alliance on't, so please you, Here at my house and at my proper cost. DUKE ORSINO Madam, I am most apt to embrace your offer. [To VIOLA] Your master quits you; and for your service done him, So much against the mettle of your sex, So far beneath your soft and tender breeding, And since you call'd me master for so long, Here is my hand: you shall from this time be Your master's mistress. OLIVIA A sister! you are she. [Re-enter FABIAN, with MALVOLIO] DUKE ORSINO Is this the madman? OLIVIA Ay, my lord, this same. How now, Malvolio! MALVOLIO Madam, you have done me wrong, Notorious wrong. OLIVIA Have I, Malvolio? no. MALVOLIO Lady, you have. Pray you, peruse that letter. You must not now deny it is your hand: Write from it, if you can, in hand or phrase; Or say 'tis not your seal, nor your invention: You can say none of this: well, grant it then And tell me, in the modesty of honour, Why you have given me such clear lights of favour, Bade me come smiling and cross-garter'd to you, To put on yellow stockings and to frown Upon Sir Toby and the lighter people; And, acting this in an obedient hope, Why have you suffer'd me to be imprison'd, Kept in a dark house, visited by the priest, And made the most notorious geck and gull That e'er invention play'd on? tell me why. OLIVIA Alas, Malvolio, this is not my writing, Though, I confess, much like the character But out of question 'tis Maria's hand. And now I do bethink me, it was she First told me thou wast mad; then camest in smiling, And in such forms which here were presupposed Upon thee in the letter. Prithee, be content: This practise hath most shrewdly pass'd upon thee; But when we know the grounds and authors of it, Thou shalt be both the plaintiff and the judge Of thine own cause. FABIAN Good madam, hear me speak, And let no quarrel nor no brawl to come Taint the condition of this present hour, Which I have wonder'd at. In hope it shall not, Most freely I confess, myself and Toby Set this device against Malvolio here, Upon some stubborn and uncourteous parts We had conceived against him: Maria writ The letter at Sir Toby's great importance; In recompense whereof he hath married her. How with a sportful malice it was follow'd, May rather pluck on laughter than revenge; If that the injuries be justly weigh'd That have on both sides pass'd. OLIVIA Alas, poor fool, how have they baffled thee! Clown Why, 'some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrown upon them.' I was one, sir, in this interlude; one Sir Topas, sir; but that's all one. 'By the Lord, fool, I am not mad.' But do you remember? 'Madam, why laugh you at such a barren rascal? an you smile not, he's gagged:' and thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges. MALVOLIO I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you. [Exit] OLIVIA He hath been most notoriously abused. DUKE ORSINO Pursue him and entreat him to a peace: He hath not told us of the captain yet: When that is known and golden time convents, A solemn combination shall be made Of our dear souls. Meantime, sweet sister, We will not part from hence. Cesario, come; For so you shall be, while you are a man; But when in other habits you are seen, Orsino's mistress and his fancy's queen. [Exeunt all, except Clown] Clown [Sings] When that I was and a little tiny boy, With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, A foolish thing was but a toy, For the rain it raineth every day. But when I came to man's estate, With hey, ho, &c. 'Gainst knaves and thieves men shut their gate, For the rain, &c. But when I came, alas! to wive, With hey, ho, &c. By swaggering could I never thrive, For the rain, &c. But when I came unto my beds, With hey, ho, &c. With toss-pots still had drunken heads, For the rain, &c. A great while ago the world begun, With hey, ho, &c. But that's all one, our play is done, And we'll strive to please you every day. [Exit] THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA DRAMATIS PERSONAE DUKE OF MILAN Father to Silvia. (DUKE:) VALENTINE | | the two Gentlemen. PROTEUS | ANTONIO Father to Proteus. THURIO a foolish rival to Valentine. EGLAMOUR Agent for Silvia in her escape. HOST where Julia lodges. (Host:) OUTLAWS with Valentine. (First Outlaw:) (Second Outlaw:) (Third Outlaw:) SPEED a clownish servant to Valentine. LAUNCE the like to Proteus. PANTHINO Servant to Antonio. JULIA beloved of Proteus. SILVIA beloved of Valentine. LUCETTA waiting-woman to Julia. Servants, Musicians. SCENE Verona; Milan; the frontiers of Mantua. THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA ACT I SCENE I Verona. An open place. [Enter VALENTINE and PROTEUS] VALENTINE Cease to persuade, my loving Proteus: Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits. Were't not affection chains thy tender days To the sweet glances of thy honour'd love, I rather would entreat thy company To see the wonders of the world abroad, Than, living dully sluggardized at home, Wear out thy youth with shapeless idleness. But since thou lovest, love still and thrive therein, Even as I would when I to love begin. PROTEUS Wilt thou be gone? Sweet Valentine, adieu! Think on thy Proteus, when thou haply seest Some rare note-worthy object in thy travel: Wish me partaker in thy happiness When thou dost meet good hap; and in thy danger, If ever danger do environ thee, Commend thy grievance to my holy prayers, For I will be thy beadsman, Valentine. VALENTINE And on a love-book pray for my success? PROTEUS Upon some book I love I'll pray for thee. VALENTINE That's on some shallow story of deep love: How young Leander cross'd the Hellespont. PROTEUS That's a deep story of a deeper love: For he was more than over shoes in love. VALENTINE 'Tis true; for you are over boots in love, And yet you never swum the Hellespont. PROTEUS Over the boots? nay, give me not the boots. VALENTINE No, I will not, for it boots thee not. PROTEUS What? VALENTINE To be in love, where scorn is bought with groans; Coy looks with heart-sore sighs; one fading moment's mirth With twenty watchful, weary, tedious nights: If haply won, perhaps a hapless gain; If lost, why then a grievous labour won; However, but a folly bought with wit, Or else a wit by folly vanquished. PROTEUS So, by your circumstance, you call me fool. VALENTINE So, by your circumstance, I fear you'll prove. PROTEUS 'Tis love you cavil at: I am not Love. VALENTINE Love is your master, for he masters you: And he that is so yoked by a fool, Methinks, should not be chronicled for wise. PROTEUS Yet writers say, as in the sweetest bud The eating canker dwells, so eating love Inhabits in the finest wits of all. VALENTINE And writers say, as the most forward bud Is eaten by the canker ere it blow, Even so by love the young and tender wit Is turn'd to folly, blasting in the bud, Losing his verdure even in the prime And all the fair effects of future hopes. But wherefore waste I time to counsel thee, That art a votary to fond desire? Once more adieu! my father at the road Expects my coming, there to see me shipp'd. PROTEUS And thither will I bring thee, Valentine. VALENTINE Sweet Proteus, no; now let us take our leave. To Milan let me hear from thee by letters Of thy success in love, and what news else Betideth here in absence of thy friend; And likewise will visit thee with mine. PROTEUS All happiness bechance to thee in Milan! VALENTINE As much to you at home! and so, farewell. [Exit] PROTEUS He after honour hunts, I after love: He leaves his friends to dignify them more, I leave myself, my friends and all, for love. Thou, Julia, thou hast metamorphosed me, Made me neglect my studies, lose my time, War with good counsel, set the world at nought; Made wit with musing weak, heart sick with thought. [Enter SPEED] SPEED Sir Proteus, save you! Saw you my master? PROTEUS But now he parted hence, to embark for Milan. SPEED Twenty to one then he is shipp'd already, And I have play'd the sheep in losing him. PROTEUS Indeed, a sheep doth very often stray, An if the shepherd be a while away. SPEED You conclude that my master is a shepherd, then, and I a sheep? PROTEUS I do. SPEED Why then, my horns are his horns, whether I wake or sleep. PROTEUS A silly answer and fitting well a sheep. SPEED This proves me still a sheep. PROTEUS True; and thy master a shepherd. SPEED Nay, that I can deny by a circumstance. PROTEUS It shall go hard but I'll prove it by another. SPEED The shepherd seeks the sheep, and not the sheep the shepherd; but I seek my master, and my master seeks not me: therefore I am no sheep. PROTEUS The sheep for fodder follow the shepherd; the shepherd for food follows not the sheep: thou for wages followest thy master; thy master for wages follows not thee: therefore thou art a sheep. SPEED Such another proof will make me cry 'baa.' PROTEUS But, dost thou hear? gavest thou my letter to Julia? SPEED Ay sir: I, a lost mutton, gave your letter to her, a laced mutton, and she, a laced mutton, gave me, a lost mutton, nothing for my labour. PROTEUS Here's too small a pasture for such store of muttons. SPEED If the ground be overcharged, you were best stick her. PROTEUS Nay: in that you are astray, 'twere best pound you. SPEED Nay, sir, less than a pound shall serve me for carrying your letter. PROTEUS You mistake; I mean the pound,--a pinfold. SPEED From a pound to a pin? fold it over and over, 'Tis threefold too little for carrying a letter to your lover. PROTEUS But what said she? SPEED [First nodding] Ay. PROTEUS Nod--Ay--why, that's noddy. SPEED You mistook, sir; I say, she did nod: and you ask me if she did nod; and I say, 'Ay.' PROTEUS And that set together is noddy. SPEED Now you have taken the pains to set it together, take it for your pains. PROTEUS No, no; you shall have it for bearing the letter. SPEED Well, I perceive I must be fain to bear with you. PROTEUS Why sir, how do you bear with me? SPEED Marry, sir, the letter, very orderly; having nothing but the word 'noddy' for my pains. PROTEUS Beshrew me, but you have a quick wit. SPEED And yet it cannot overtake your slow purse. PROTEUS Come come, open the matter in brief: what said she? SPEED Open your purse, that the money and the matter may be both at once delivered. PROTEUS Well, sir, here is for your pains. What said she? SPEED Truly, sir, I think you'll hardly win her. PROTEUS Why, couldst thou perceive so much from her? SPEED Sir, I could perceive nothing at all from her; no, not so much as a ducat for delivering your letter: and being so hard to me that brought your mind, I fear she'll prove as hard to you in telling your mind. Give her no token but stones; for she's as hard as steel. PROTEUS What said she? nothing? SPEED No, not so much as 'Take this for thy pains.' To testify your bounty, I thank you, you have testerned me; in requital whereof, henceforth carry your letters yourself: and so, sir, I'll commend you to my master. PROTEUS Go, go, be gone, to save your ship from wreck, Which cannot perish having thee aboard, Being destined to a drier death on shore. [Exit SPEED] I must go send some better messenger: I fear my Julia would not deign my lines, Receiving them from such a worthless post. [Exit] THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA ACT I SCENE II The same. Garden of JULIA's house. [Enter JULlA and LUCETTA] JULIA But say, Lucetta, now we are alone, Wouldst thou then counsel me to fall in love? LUCETTA Ay, madam, so you stumble not unheedfully. JULIA Of all the fair resort of gentlemen That every day with parle encounter me, In thy opinion which is worthiest love? LUCETTA Please you repeat their names, I'll show my mind According to my shallow simple skill. JULIA What think'st thou of the fair Sir Eglamour? LUCETTA As of a knight well-spoken, neat and fine; But, were I you, he never should be mine. JULIA What think'st thou of the rich Mercatio? LUCETTA Well of his wealth; but of himself, so so. JULIA What think'st thou of the gentle Proteus? LUCETTA Lord, Lord! to see what folly reigns in us! JULIA How now! what means this passion at his name? LUCETTA Pardon, dear madam: 'tis a passing shame That I, unworthy body as I am, Should censure thus on lovely gentlemen. JULIA Why not on Proteus, as of all the rest? LUCETTA Then thus: of many good I think him best. JULIA Your reason? LUCETTA I have no other, but a woman's reason; I think him so because I think him so. JULIA And wouldst thou have me cast my love on him? LUCETTA Ay, if you thought your love not cast away. JULIA Why he, of all the rest, hath never moved me. LUCETTA Yet he, of all the rest, I think, best loves ye. JULIA His little speaking shows his love but small. LUCETTA Fire that's closest kept burns most of all. JULIA They do not love that do not show their love. LUCETTA O, they love least that let men know their love. JULIA I would I knew his mind. LUCETTA Peruse this paper, madam. JULIA 'To Julia.' Say, from whom? LUCETTA That the contents will show. JULIA Say, say, who gave it thee? LUCETTA Valentine's page; and sent, I think, from Proteus. He would have given it you; but I, being in the way, Did in your name receive it: pardon the fault I pray. JULIA Now, by my modesty, a goodly broker! Dare you presume to harbour wanton lines? To whisper and conspire against my youth? Now, trust me, 'tis an office of great worth And you an officer fit for the place. Or else return no more into my sight. LUCETTA To plead for love deserves more fee than hate. JULIA Will ye be gone? LUCETTA That you may ruminate. [Exit] JULIA And yet I would I had o'erlooked the letter: It were a shame to call her back again And pray her to a fault for which I chid her. What a fool is she, that knows I am a maid, And would not force the letter to my view! Since maids, in modesty, say 'no' to that Which they would have the profferer construe 'ay.' Fie, fie, how wayward is this foolish love That, like a testy babe, will scratch the nurse And presently all humbled kiss the rod! How churlishly I chid Lucetta hence, When willingly I would have had her here! How angerly I taught my brow to frown, When inward joy enforced my heart to smile! My penance is to call Lucetta back And ask remission for my folly past. What ho! Lucetta! [Re-enter LUCETTA] LUCETTA What would your ladyship? JULIA Is't near dinner-time? LUCETTA I would it were, That you might kill your stomach on your meat And not upon your maid. JULIA What is't that you took up so gingerly? LUCETTA Nothing. JULIA Why didst thou stoop, then? LUCETTA To take a paper up that I let fall. JULIA And is that paper nothing? LUCETTA Nothing concerning me. JULIA Then let it lie for those that it concerns. LUCETTA Madam, it will not lie where it concerns Unless it have a false interpeter. JULIA Some love of yours hath writ to you in rhyme. LUCETTA That I might sing it, madam, to a tune. Give me a note: your ladyship can set. JULIA As little by such toys as may be possible. Best sing it to the tune of 'Light o' love.' LUCETTA It is too heavy for so light a tune. JULIA Heavy! belike it hath some burden then? LUCETTA Ay, and melodious were it, would you sing it. JULIA And why not you? LUCETTA I cannot reach so high. JULIA Let's see your song. How now, minion! LUCETTA Keep tune there still, so you will sing it out: And yet methinks I do not like this tune. JULIA You do not? LUCETTA No, madam; it is too sharp. JULIA You, minion, are too saucy. LUCETTA Nay, now you are too flat And mar the concord with too harsh a descant: There wanteth but a mean to fill your song. JULIA The mean is drown'd with your unruly bass. LUCETTA Indeed, I bid the base for Proteus. JULIA This babble shall not henceforth trouble me. Here is a coil with protestation! [Tears the letter] Go get you gone, and let the papers lie: You would be fingering them, to anger me. LUCETTA She makes it strange; but she would be best pleased To be so anger'd with another letter. [Exit] JULIA Nay, would I were so anger'd with the same! O hateful hands, to tear such loving words! Injurious wasps, to feed on such sweet honey And kill the bees that yield it with your stings! I'll kiss each several paper for amends. Look, here is writ 'kind Julia.' Unkind Julia! As in revenge of thy ingratitude, I throw thy name against the bruising stones, Trampling contemptuously on thy disdain. And here is writ 'love-wounded Proteus.' Poor wounded name! my bosom as a bed Shall lodge thee till thy wound be thoroughly heal'd; And thus I search it with a sovereign kiss. But twice or thrice was 'Proteus' written down. Be calm, good wind, blow not a word away Till I have found each letter in the letter, Except mine own name: that some whirlwind bear Unto a ragged fearful-hanging rock And throw it thence into the raging sea! Lo, here in one line is his name twice writ, 'Poor forlorn Proteus, passionate Proteus, To the sweet Julia:' that I'll tear away. And yet I will not, sith so prettily He couples it to his complaining names. Thus will I fold them one on another: Now kiss, embrace, contend, do what you will. [Re-enter LUCETTA] LUCETTA Madam, Dinner is ready, and your father stays. JULIA Well, let us go. LUCETTA What, shall these papers lie like tell-tales here? JULIA If you respect them, best to take them up. LUCETTA Nay, I was taken up for laying them down: Yet here they shall not lie, for catching cold. JULIA I see you have a month's mind to them. LUCETTA Ay, madam, you may say what sights you see; I see things too, although you judge I wink. JULIA Come, come; will't please you go? [Exeunt] THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA ACT I SCENE III The same. ANTONIO's house. [Enter ANTONIO and PANTHINO] ANTONIO Tell me, Panthino, what sad talk was that Wherewith my brother held you in the cloister? PANTHINO 'Twas of his nephew Proteus, your son. ANTONIO Why, what of him? PANTHINO He wonder'd that your lordship Would suffer him to spend his youth at home, While other men, of slender reputation, Put forth their sons to seek preferment out: Some to the wars, to try their fortune there; Some to discover islands far away; Some to the studious universities. For any or for all these exercises, He said that Proteus your son was meet, And did request me to importune you To let him spend his time no more at home, Which would be great impeachment to his age, In having known no travel in his youth. ANTONIO Nor need'st thou much importune me to that Whereon this month I have been hammering. I have consider'd well his loss of time And how he cannot be a perfect man, Not being tried and tutor'd in the world: Experience is by industry achieved And perfected by the swift course of time. Then tell me, whither were I best to send him? PANTHINO I think your lordship is not ignorant How his companion, youthful Valentine, Attends the emperor in his royal court. ANTONIO I know it well. PANTHINO 'Twere good, I think, your lordship sent him thither: There shall he practise tilts and tournaments, Hear sweet discourse, converse with noblemen. And be in eye of every exercise Worthy his youth and nobleness of birth. ANTONIO I like thy counsel; well hast thou advised: And that thou mayst perceive how well I like it, The execution of it shall make known. Even with the speediest expedition I will dispatch him to the emperor's court. PANTHINO To-morrow, may it please you, Don Alphonso, With other gentlemen of good esteem, Are journeying to salute the emperor And to commend their service to his will. ANTONIO Good company; with them shall Proteus go: And, in good time! now will we break with him. [Enter PROTEUS] PROTEUS Sweet love! sweet lines! sweet life! Here is her hand, the agent of her heart; Here is her oath for love, her honour's pawn. O, that our fathers would applaud our loves, To seal our happiness with their consents! O heavenly Julia! ANTONIO How now! what letter are you reading there? PROTEUS May't please your lordship, 'tis a word or two Of commendations sent from Valentine, Deliver'd by a friend that came from him. ANTONIO Lend me the letter; let me see what news. PROTEUS There is no news, my lord, but that he writes How happily he lives, how well beloved And daily graced by the emperor; Wishing me with him, partner of his fortune. ANTONIO And how stand you affected to his wish? PROTEUS As one relying on your lordship's will And not depending on his friendly wish. ANTONIO My will is something sorted with his wish. Muse not that I thus suddenly proceed; For what I will, I will, and there an end. I am resolved that thou shalt spend some time With Valentinus in the emperor's court: What maintenance he from his friends receives, Like exhibition thou shalt have from me. To-morrow be in readiness to go: Excuse it not, for I am peremptory. PROTEUS My lord, I cannot be so soon provided: Please you, deliberate a day or two. ANTONIO Look, what thou want'st shall be sent after thee: No more of stay! to-morrow thou must go. Come on, Panthino: you shall be employ'd To hasten on his expedition. [Exeunt ANTONIO and PANTHINO] PROTEUS Thus have I shunn'd the fire for fear of burning, And drench'd me in the sea, where I am drown'd. I fear'd to show my father Julia's letter, Lest he should take exceptions to my love; And with the vantage of mine own excuse Hath he excepted most against my love. O, how this spring of love resembleth The uncertain glory of an April day, Which now shows all the beauty of the sun, And by and by a cloud takes all away! [Re-enter PANTHINO] PANTHINO Sir Proteus, your father calls for you: He is in haste; therefore, I pray you to go. PROTEUS Why, this it is: my heart accords thereto, And yet a thousand times it answers 'no.' [Exeunt] THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA ACT II SCENE I Milan. The DUKE's palace. [Enter VALENTINE and SPEED] SPEED Sir, your glove. VALENTINE Not mine; my gloves are on. SPEED Why, then, this may be yours, for this is but one. VALENTINE Ha! let me see: ay, give it me, it's mine: Sweet ornament that decks a thing divine! Ah, Silvia, Silvia! SPEED Madam Silvia! Madam Silvia! VALENTINE How now, sirrah? SPEED She is not within hearing, sir. VALENTINE Why, sir, who bade you call her? SPEED Your worship, sir; or else I mistook. VALENTINE Well, you'll still be too forward. SPEED And yet I was last chidden for being too slow. VALENTINE Go to, sir: tell me, do you know Madam Silvia? SPEED She that your worship loves? VALENTINE Why, how know you that I am in love? SPEED Marry, by these special marks: first, you have learned, like Sir Proteus, to wreathe your arms, like a malecontent; to relish a love-song, like a robin-redbreast; to walk alone, like one that had the pestilence; to sigh, like a school-boy that had lost his A B C; to weep, like a young wench that had buried her grandam; to fast, like one that takes diet; to watch like one that fears robbing; to speak puling, like a beggar at Hallowmas. You were wont, when you laughed, to crow like a cock; when you walked, to walk like one of the lions; when you fasted, it was presently after dinner; when you looked sadly, it was for want of money: and now you are metamorphosed with a mistress, that, when I look on you, I can hardly think you my master. VALENTINE Are all these things perceived in me? SPEED They are all perceived without ye. VALENTINE Without me? they cannot. SPEED Without you? nay, that's certain, for, without you were so simple, none else would: but you are so without these follies, that these follies are within you and shine through you like the water in an urinal, that not an eye that sees you but is a physician to comment on your malady. VALENTINE But tell me, dost thou know my lady Silvia? SPEED She that you gaze on so as she sits at supper? VALENTINE Hast thou observed that? even she, I mean. SPEED Why, sir, I know her not. VALENTINE Dost thou know her by my gazing on her, and yet knowest her not? SPEED Is she not hard-favoured, sir? VALENTINE Not so fair, boy, as well-favoured. SPEED Sir, I know that well enough. VALENTINE What dost thou know? SPEED That she is not so fair as, of you, well-favoured. VALENTINE I mean that her beauty is exquisite, but her favour infinite. SPEED That's because the one is painted and the other out of all count. VALENTINE How painted? and how out of count? SPEED Marry, sir, so painted, to make her fair, that no man counts of her beauty. VALENTINE How esteemest thou me? I account of her beauty. SPEED You never saw her since she was deformed. VALENTINE How long hath she been deformed? SPEED Ever since you loved her. VALENTINE I have loved her ever since I saw her; and still I see her beautiful. SPEED If you love her, you cannot see her. VALENTINE Why? SPEED Because Love is blind. O, that you had mine eyes; or your own eyes had the lights they were wont to have when you chid at Sir Proteus for going ungartered! VALENTINE What should I see then? SPEED Your own present folly and her passing deformity: for he, being in love, could not see to garter his hose, and you, being in love, cannot see to put on your hose. VALENTINE Belike, boy, then, you are in love; for last morning you could not see to wipe my shoes. SPEED True, sir; I was in love with my bed: I thank you, you swinged me for my love, which makes me the bolder to chide you for yours. VALENTINE In conclusion, I stand affected to her. SPEED I would you were set, so your affection would cease. VALENTINE Last night she enjoined me to write some lines to one she loves. SPEED And have you? VALENTINE I have. SPEED Are they not lamely writ? VALENTINE No, boy, but as well as I can do them. Peace! here she comes. SPEED [Aside] O excellent motion! O exceeding puppet! Now will he interpret to her. [Enter SILVIA] VALENTINE Madam and mistress, a thousand good-morrows. SPEED [Aside] O, give ye good even! here's a million of manners. SILVIA Sir Valentine and servant, to you two thousand. SPEED [Aside] He should give her interest and she gives it him. VALENTINE As you enjoin'd me, I have writ your letter Unto the secret nameless friend of yours; Which I was much unwilling to proceed in But for my duty to your ladyship. SILVIA I thank you gentle servant: 'tis very clerkly done. VALENTINE Now trust me, madam, it came hardly off; For being ignorant to whom it goes I writ at random, very doubtfully. SILVIA Perchance you think too much of so much pains? VALENTINE No, madam; so it stead you, I will write Please you command, a thousand times as much; And yet-- SILVIA A pretty period! Well, I guess the sequel; And yet I will not name it; and yet I care not; And yet take this again; and yet I thank you, Meaning henceforth to trouble you no more. SPEED [Aside] And yet you will; and yet another 'yet.' VALENTINE What means your ladyship? do you not like it? SILVIA Yes, yes; the lines are very quaintly writ; But since unwillingly, take them again. Nay, take them. VALENTINE Madam, they are for you. SILVIA Ay, ay: you writ them, sir, at my request; But I will none of them; they are for you; I would have had them writ more movingly. VALENTINE Please you, I'll write your ladyship another. SILVIA And when it's writ, for my sake read it over, And if it please you, so; if not, why, so. VALENTINE If it please me, madam, what then? SILVIA Why, if it please you, take it for your labour: And so, good morrow, servant. [Exit] SPEED O jest unseen, inscrutable, invisible, As a nose on a man's face, or a weathercock on a steeple! My master sues to her, and she hath taught her suitor, He being her pupil, to become her tutor. O excellent device! was there ever heard a better, That my master, being scribe, to himself should write the letter? VALENTINE How now, sir? what are you reasoning with yourself? SPEED Nay, I was rhyming: 'tis you that have the reason. VALENTINE To do what? SPEED To be a spokesman for Madam Silvia. VALENTINE To whom? SPEED To yourself: why, she wooes you by a figure. VALENTINE What figure? SPEED By a letter, I should say. VALENTINE Why, she hath not writ to me? SPEED What need she, when she hath made you write to yourself? Why, do you not perceive the jest? VALENTINE No, believe me. SPEED No believing you, indeed, sir. But did you perceive her earnest? VALENTINE She gave me none, except an angry word. SPEED Why, she hath given you a letter. VALENTINE That's the letter I writ to her friend. SPEED And that letter hath she delivered, and there an end. VALENTINE I would it were no worse. SPEED I'll warrant you, 'tis as well: For often have you writ to her, and she, in modesty, Or else for want of idle time, could not again reply; Or fearing else some messenger that might her mind discover, Herself hath taught her love himself to write unto her lover. All this I speak in print, for in print I found it. Why muse you, sir? 'tis dinner-time. VALENTINE I have dined. SPEED Ay, but hearken, sir; though the chameleon Love can feed on the air, I am one that am nourished by my victuals, and would fain have meat. O, be not like your mistress; be moved, be moved. [Exeunt] THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA ACT II SCENE II Verona. JULIA'S house. [Enter PROTEUS and JULIA] PROTEUS Have patience, gentle Julia. JULIA I must, where is no remedy. PROTEUS When possibly I can, I will return. JULIA If you turn not, you will return the sooner. Keep this remembrance for thy Julia's sake. [Giving a ring] PROTEUS Why then, we'll make exchange; here, take you this. JULIA And seal the bargain with a holy kiss. PROTEUS Here is my hand for my true constancy; And when that hour o'erslips me in the day Wherein I sigh not, Julia, for thy sake, The next ensuing hour some foul mischance Torment me for my love's forgetfulness! My father stays my coming; answer not; The tide is now: nay, not thy tide of tears; That tide will stay me longer than I should. Julia, farewell! [Exit JULIA] What, gone without a word? Ay, so true love should do: it cannot speak; For truth hath better deeds than words to grace it. [Enter PANTHINO] PANTHINO Sir Proteus, you are stay'd for. PROTEUS Go; I come, I come. Alas! this parting strikes poor lovers dumb. [Exeunt] THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA ACT II SCENE III The same. A street. [Enter LAUNCE, leading a dog] LAUNCE Nay, 'twill be this hour ere I have done weeping; all the kind of the Launces have this very fault. I have received my proportion, like the prodigious son, and am going with Sir Proteus to the Imperial's court. I think Crab, my dog, be the sourest-natured dog that lives: my mother weeping, my father wailing, my sister crying, our maid howling, our cat wringing her hands, and all our house in a great perplexity, yet did not this cruel-hearted cur shed one tear: he is a stone, a very pebble stone, and has no more pity in him than a dog: a Jew would have wept to have seen our parting; why, my grandam, having no eyes, look you, wept herself blind at my parting. Nay, I'll show you the manner of it. This shoe is my father: no, this left shoe is my father: no, no, this left shoe is my mother: nay, that cannot be so neither: yes, it is so, it is so, it hath the worser sole. This shoe, with the hole in it, is my mother, and this my father; a vengeance on't! there 'tis: now, sit, this staff is my sister, for, look you, she is as white as a lily and as small as a wand: this hat is Nan, our maid: I am the dog: no, the dog is himself, and I am the dog--Oh! the dog is me, and I am myself; ay, so, so. Now come I to my father; Father, your blessing: now should not the shoe speak a word for weeping: now should I kiss my father; well, he weeps on. Now come I to my mother: O, that she could speak now like a wood woman! Well, I kiss her; why, there 'tis; here's my mother's breath up and down. Now come I to my sister; mark the moan she makes. Now the dog all this while sheds not a tear nor speaks a word; but see how I lay the dust with my tears. [Enter PANTHINO] PANTHINO Launce, away, away, aboard! thy master is shipped and thou art to post after with oars. What's the matter? why weepest thou, man? Away, ass! You'll lose the tide, if you tarry any longer. LAUNCE It is no matter if the tied were lost; for it is the unkindest tied that ever any man tied. PANTHINO What's the unkindest tide? LAUNCE Why, he that's tied here, Crab, my dog. PANTHINO Tut, man, I mean thou'lt lose the flood, and, in losing the flood, lose thy voyage, and, in losing thy voyage, lose thy master, and, in losing thy master, lose thy service, and, in losing thy service,--Why dost thou stop my mouth? LAUNCE For fear thou shouldst lose thy tongue. PANTHINO Where should I lose my tongue? LAUNCE In thy tale. PANTHINO In thy tail! LAUNCE Lose the tide, and the voyage, and the master, and the service, and the tied! Why, man, if the river were dry, I am able to fill it with my tears; if the wind were down, I could drive the boat with my sighs. PANTHINO Come, come away, man; I was sent to call thee. LAUNCE Sir, call me what thou darest. PANTHINO Wilt thou go? LAUNCE Well, I will go. [Exeunt] THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA ACT II SCENE IV Milan. The DUKE's palace. [Enter SILVIA, VALENTINE, THURIO, and SPEED] SILVIA Servant! VALENTINE Mistress? SPEED Master, Sir Thurio frowns on you. VALENTINE Ay, boy, it's for love. SPEED Not of you. VALENTINE Of my mistress, then. SPEED 'Twere good you knocked him. [Exit] SILVIA Servant, you are sad. VALENTINE Indeed, madam, I seem so. THURIO Seem you that you are not? VALENTINE Haply I do. THURIO So do counterfeits. VALENTINE So do you. THURIO What seem I that I am not? VALENTINE Wise. THURIO What instance of the contrary? VALENTINE Your folly. THURIO And how quote you my folly? VALENTINE I quote it in your jerkin. THURIO My jerkin is a doublet. VALENTINE Well, then, I'll double your folly. THURIO How? SILVIA What, angry, Sir Thurio! do you change colour? VALENTINE Give him leave, madam; he is a kind of chameleon. THURIO That hath more mind to feed on your blood than live in your air. VALENTINE You have said, sir. THURIO Ay, sir, and done too, for this time. VALENTINE I know it well, sir; you always end ere you begin. SILVIA A fine volley of words, gentlemen, and quickly shot off. VALENTINE 'Tis indeed, madam; we thank the giver. SILVIA Who is that, servant? VALENTINE Yourself, sweet lady; for you gave the fire. Sir Thurio borrows his wit from your ladyship's looks, and spends what he borrows kindly in your company. THURIO Sir, if you spend word for word with me, I shall make your wit bankrupt. VALENTINE I know it well, sir; you have an exchequer of words, and, I think, no other treasure to give your followers, for it appears by their bare liveries, that they live by your bare words. SILVIA No more, gentlemen, no more:--here comes my father. [Enter DUKE] DUKE Now, daughter Silvia, you are hard beset. Sir Valentine, your father's in good health: What say you to a letter from your friends Of much good news? VALENTINE My lord, I will be thankful. To any happy messenger from thence. DUKE Know ye Don Antonio, your countryman? VALENTINE Ay, my good lord, I know the gentleman To be of worth and worthy estimation And not without desert so well reputed. DUKE Hath he not a son? VALENTINE Ay, my good lord; a son that well deserves The honour and regard of such a father. DUKE You know him well? VALENTINE I know him as myself; for from our infancy We have conversed and spent our hours together: And though myself have been an idle truant, Omitting the sweet benefit of time To clothe mine age with angel-like perfection, Yet hath Sir Proteus, for that's his name, Made use and fair advantage of his days; His years but young, but his experience old; His head unmellow'd, but his judgment ripe; And, in a word, for far behind his worth Comes all the praises that I now bestow, He is complete in feature and in mind With all good grace to grace a gentleman. DUKE Beshrew me, sir, but if he make this good, He is as worthy for an empress' love As meet to be an emperor's counsellor. Well, sir, this gentleman is come to me, With commendation from great potentates; And here he means to spend his time awhile: I think 'tis no unwelcome news to you. VALENTINE Should I have wish'd a thing, it had been he. DUKE Welcome him then according to his worth. Silvia, I speak to you, and you, Sir Thurio; For Valentine, I need not cite him to it: I will send him hither to you presently. [Exit] VALENTINE This is the gentleman I told your ladyship Had come along with me, but that his mistress Did hold his eyes lock'd in her crystal looks. SILVIA Belike that now she hath enfranchised them Upon some other pawn for fealty. VALENTINE Nay, sure, I think she holds them prisoners still. SILVIA Nay, then he should be blind; and, being blind How could he see his way to seek out you? VALENTINE Why, lady, Love hath twenty pair of eyes. THURIO They say that Love hath not an eye at all. VALENTINE To see such lovers, Thurio, as yourself: Upon a homely object Love can wink. SILVIA Have done, have done; here comes the gentleman. [Exit THURIO] [Enter PROTEUS] VALENTINE Welcome, dear Proteus! Mistress, I beseech you, Confirm his welcome with some special favour. SILVIA His worth is warrant for his welcome hither, If this be he you oft have wish'd to hear from. VALENTINE Mistress, it is: sweet lady, entertain him To be my fellow-servant to your ladyship. SILVIA Too low a mistress for so high a servant. PROTEUS Not so, sweet lady: but too mean a servant To have a look of such a worthy mistress. VALENTINE Leave off discourse of disability: Sweet lady, entertain him for your servant. PROTEUS My duty will I boast of; nothing else. SILVIA And duty never yet did want his meed: Servant, you are welcome to a worthless mistress. PROTEUS I'll die on him that says so but yourself. SILVIA That you are welcome? PROTEUS That you are worthless. [Re-enter THURIO] THURIO Madam, my lord your father would speak with you. SILVIA I wait upon his pleasure. Come, Sir Thurio, Go with me. Once more, new servant, welcome: I'll leave you to confer of home affairs; When you have done, we look to hear from you. PROTEUS We'll both attend upon your ladyship. [Exeunt SILVIA and THURIO] VALENTINE Now, tell me, how do all from whence you came? PROTEUS Your friends are well and have them much commended. VALENTINE And how do yours? PROTEUS I left them all in health. VALENTINE How does your lady? and how thrives your love? PROTEUS My tales of love were wont to weary you; I know you joy not in a love discourse. VALENTINE Ay, Proteus, but that life is alter'd now: I have done penance for contemning Love, Whose high imperious thoughts have punish'd me With bitter fasts, with penitential groans, With nightly tears and daily heart-sore sighs; For in revenge of my contempt of love, Love hath chased sleep from my enthralled eyes And made them watchers of mine own heart's sorrow. O gentle Proteus, Love's a mighty lord, And hath so humbled me, as, I confess, There is no woe to his correction, Nor to his service no such joy on earth. Now no discourse, except it be of love; Now can I break my fast, dine, sup and sleep, Upon the very naked name of love. PROTEUS Enough; I read your fortune in your eye. Was this the idol that you worship so? VALENTINE Even she; and is she not a heavenly saint? PROTEUS No; but she is an earthly paragon. VALENTINE Call her divine. PROTEUS I will not flatter her. VALENTINE O, flatter me; for love delights in praises. PROTEUS When I was sick, you gave me bitter pills, And I must minister the like to you. VALENTINE Then speak the truth by her; if not divine, Yet let her be a principality, Sovereign to all the creatures on the earth. PROTEUS Except my mistress. VALENTINE Sweet, except not any; Except thou wilt except against my love. PROTEUS Have I not reason to prefer mine own? VALENTINE And I will help thee to prefer her too: She shall be dignified with this high honour-- To bear my lady's train, lest the base earth Should from her vesture chance to steal a kiss And, of so great a favour growing proud, Disdain to root the summer-swelling flower And make rough winter everlastingly. PROTEUS Why, Valentine, what braggardism is this? VALENTINE Pardon me, Proteus: all I can is nothing To her whose worth makes other worthies nothing; She is alone. PROTEUS Then let her alone. VALENTINE Not for the world: why, man, she is mine own, And I as rich in having such a jewel As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl, The water nectar and the rocks pure gold. Forgive me that I do not dream on thee, Because thou see'st me dote upon my love. My foolish rival, that her father likes Only for his possessions are so huge, Is gone with her along, and I must after, For love, thou know'st, is full of jealousy. PROTEUS But she loves you? VALENTINE Ay, and we are betroth'd: nay, more, our, marriage-hour, With all the cunning manner of our flight, Determined of; how I must climb her window, The ladder made of cords, and all the means Plotted and 'greed on for my happiness. Good Proteus, go with me to my chamber, In these affairs to aid me with thy counsel. PROTEUS Go on before; I shall inquire you forth: I must unto the road, to disembark Some necessaries that I needs must use, And then I'll presently attend you. VALENTINE Will you make haste? PROTEUS I will. [Exit VALENTINE] Even as one heat another heat expels, Or as one nail by strength drives out another, So the remembrance of my former love Is by a newer object quite forgotten. Is it mine, or Valentine's praise, Her true perfection, or my false transgression, That makes me reasonless to reason thus? She is fair; and so is Julia that I love-- That I did love, for now my love is thaw'd; Which, like a waxen image, 'gainst a fire, Bears no impression of the thing it was. Methinks my zeal to Valentine is cold, And that I love him not as I was wont. O, but I love his lady too too much, And that's the reason I love him so little. How shall I dote on her with more advice, That thus without advice begin to love her! 'Tis but her picture I have yet beheld, And that hath dazzled my reason's light; But when I look on her perfections, There is no reason but I shall be blind. If I can cheque my erring love, I will; If not, to compass her I'll use my skill. [Exit] THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA ACT II SCENE V The same. A street. [Enter SPEED and LAUNCE severally] SPEED Launce! by mine honesty, welcome to Milan! LAUNCE Forswear not thyself, sweet youth, for I am not welcome. I reckon this always, that a man is never undone till he be hanged, nor never welcome to a place till some certain shot be paid and the hostess say 'Welcome!' SPEED Come on, you madcap, I'll to the alehouse with you presently; where, for one shot of five pence, thou shalt have five thousand welcomes. But, sirrah, how did thy master part with Madam Julia? LAUNCE Marry, after they closed in earnest, they parted very fairly in jest. SPEED But shall she marry him? LAUNCE No. SPEED How then? shall he marry her? LAUNCE No, neither. SPEED What, are they broken? LAUNCE No, they are both as whole as a fish. SPEED Why, then, how stands the matter with them? LAUNCE Marry, thus: when it stands well with him, it stands well with her. SPEED What an ass art thou! I understand thee not. LAUNCE What a block art thou, that thou canst not! My staff understands me. SPEED What thou sayest? LAUNCE Ay, and what I do too: look thee, I'll but lean, and my staff understands me. SPEED It stands under thee, indeed. LAUNCE Why, stand-under and under-stand is all one. SPEED But tell me true, will't be a match? LAUNCE Ask my dog: if he say ay, it will! if he say no, it will; if he shake his tail and say nothing, it will. SPEED The conclusion is then that it will. LAUNCE Thou shalt never get such a secret from me but by a parable. SPEED 'Tis well that I get it so. But, Launce, how sayest thou, that my master is become a notable lover? LAUNCE I never knew him otherwise. SPEED Than how? LAUNCE A notable lubber, as thou reportest him to be. SPEED Why, thou whoreson ass, thou mistakest me. LAUNCE Why, fool, I meant not thee; I meant thy master. SPEED I tell thee, my master is become a hot lover. LAUNCE Why, I tell thee, I care not though he burn himself in love. If thou wilt, go with me to the alehouse; if not, thou art an Hebrew, a Jew, and not worth the name of a Christian. SPEED Why? LAUNCE Because thou hast not so much charity in thee as to go to the ale with a Christian. Wilt thou go? SPEED At thy service. [Exeunt] THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA ACT II SCENE VI The same. The DUKE'S palace. [Enter PROTEUS] PROTEUS To leave my Julia, shall I be forsworn; To love fair Silvia, shall I be forsworn; To wrong my friend, I shall be much forsworn; And even that power which gave me first my oath Provokes me to this threefold perjury; Love bade me swear and Love bids me forswear. O sweet-suggesting Love, if thou hast sinned, Teach me, thy tempted subject, to excuse it! At first I did adore a twinkling star, But now I worship a celestial sun. Unheedful vows may heedfully be broken, And he wants wit that wants resolved will To learn his wit to exchange the bad for better. Fie, fie, unreverend tongue! to call her bad, Whose sovereignty so oft thou hast preferr'd With twenty thousand soul-confirming oaths. I cannot leave to love, and yet I do; But there I leave to love where I should love. Julia I lose and Valentine I lose: If I keep them, I needs must lose myself; If I lose them, thus find I by their loss For Valentine myself, for Julia Silvia. I to myself am dearer than a friend, For love is still most precious in itself; And Silvia--witness Heaven, that made her fair!-- Shows Julia but a swarthy Ethiope. I will forget that Julia is alive, Remembering that my love to her is dead; And Valentine I'll hold an enemy, Aiming at Silvia as a sweeter friend. I cannot now prove constant to myself, Without some treachery used to Valentine. This night he meaneth with a corded ladder To climb celestial Silvia's chamber-window, Myself in counsel, his competitor. Now presently I'll give her father notice Of their disguising and pretended flight; Who, all enraged, will banish Valentine; For Thurio, he intends, shall wed his daughter; But, Valentine being gone, I'll quickly cross By some sly trick blunt Thurio's dull proceeding. Love, lend me wings to make my purpose swift, As thou hast lent me wit to plot this drift! [Exit] THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA ACT II SCENE VII Verona. JULIA'S house. [Enter JULIA and LUCETTA] JULIA Counsel, Lucetta; gentle girl, assist me; And even in kind love I do conjure thee, Who art the table wherein all my thoughts Are visibly character'd and engraved, To lesson me and tell me some good mean How, with my honour, I may undertake A journey to my loving Proteus. LUCETTA Alas, the way is wearisome and long! JULIA A true-devoted pilgrim is not weary To measure kingdoms with his feeble steps; Much less shall she that hath Love's wings to fly, And when the flight is made to one so dear, Of such divine perfection, as Sir Proteus. LUCETTA Better forbear till Proteus make return. JULIA O, know'st thou not his looks are my soul's food? Pity the dearth that I have pined in, By longing for that food so long a time. Didst thou but know the inly touch of love, Thou wouldst as soon go kindle fire with snow As seek to quench the fire of love with words. LUCETTA I do not seek to quench your love's hot fire, But qualify the fire's extreme rage, Lest it should burn above the bounds of reason. JULIA The more thou damm'st it up, the more it burns. The current that with gentle murmur glides, Thou know'st, being stopp'd, impatiently doth rage; But when his fair course is not hindered, He makes sweet music with the enamell'ed stones, Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge He overtaketh in his pilgrimage, And so by many winding nooks he strays With willing sport to the wild ocean. Then let me go and hinder not my course I'll be as patient as a gentle stream And make a pastime of each weary step, Till the last step have brought me to my love; And there I'll rest, as after much turmoil A blessed soul doth in Elysium. LUCETTA But in what habit will you go along? JULIA Not like a woman; for I would prevent The loose encounters of lascivious men: Gentle Lucetta, fit me with such weeds As may beseem some well-reputed page. LUCETTA Why, then, your ladyship must cut your hair. JULIA No, girl, I'll knit it up in silken strings With twenty odd-conceited true-love knots. To be fantastic may become a youth Of greater time than I shall show to be. LUCETTA What fashion, madam shall I make your breeches? JULIA That fits as well as 'Tell me, good my lord, What compass will you wear your farthingale?' Why even what fashion thou best likest, Lucetta. LUCETTA You must needs have them with a codpiece, madam. JULIA Out, out, Lucetta! that would be ill-favour'd. LUCETTA A round hose, madam, now's not worth a pin, Unless you have a codpiece to stick pins on. JULIA Lucetta, as thou lovest me, let me have What thou thinkest meet and is most mannerly. But tell me, wench, how will the world repute me For undertaking so unstaid a journey? I fear me, it will make me scandalized. LUCETTA If you think so, then stay at home and go not. JULIA Nay, that I will not. LUCETTA Then never dream on infamy, but go. If Proteus like your journey when you come, No matter who's displeased when you are gone: I fear me, he will scarce be pleased withal. JULIA That is the least, Lucetta, of my fear: A thousand oaths, an ocean of his tears And instances of infinite of love Warrant me welcome to my Proteus. LUCETTA All these are servants to deceitful men. JULIA Base men, that use them to so base effect! But truer stars did govern Proteus' birth His words are bonds, his oaths are oracles, His love sincere, his thoughts immaculate, His tears pure messengers sent from his heart, His heart as far from fraud as heaven from earth. LUCETTA Pray heaven he prove so, when you come to him! JULIA Now, as thou lovest me, do him not that wrong To bear a hard opinion of his truth: Only deserve my love by loving him; And presently go with me to my chamber, To take a note of what I stand in need of, To furnish me upon my longing journey. All that is mine I leave at thy dispose, My goods, my lands, my reputation; Only, in lieu thereof, dispatch me hence. Come, answer not, but to it presently! I am impatient of my tarriance. [Exeunt] THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA ACT III SCENE I Milan. The DUKE's palace. [Enter DUKE, THURIO, and PROTEUS] DUKE Sir Thurio, give us leave, I pray, awhile; We have some secrets to confer about. [Exit THURIO] Now, tell me, Proteus, what's your will with me? PROTEUS My gracious lord, that which I would discover The law of friendship bids me to conceal; But when I call to mind your gracious favours Done to me, undeserving as I am, My duty pricks me on to utter that Which else no worldly good should draw from me. Know, worthy prince, Sir Valentine, my friend, This night intends to steal away your daughter: Myself am one made privy to the plot. I know you have determined to bestow her On Thurio, whom your gentle daughter hates; And should she thus be stol'n away from you, It would be much vexation to your age. Thus, for my duty's sake, I rather chose To cross my friend in his intended drift Than, by concealing it, heap on your head A pack of sorrows which would press you down, Being unprevented, to your timeless grave. DUKE Proteus, I thank thee for thine honest care; Which to requite, command me while I live. This love of theirs myself have often seen, Haply when they have judged me fast asleep, And oftentimes have purposed to forbid Sir Valentine her company and my court: But fearing lest my jealous aim might err And so unworthily disgrace the man, A rashness that I ever yet have shunn'd, I gave him gentle looks, thereby to find That which thyself hast now disclosed to me. And, that thou mayst perceive my fear of this, Knowing that tender youth is soon suggested, I nightly lodge her in an upper tower, The key whereof myself have ever kept; And thence she cannot be convey'd away. PROTEUS Know, noble lord, they have devised a mean How he her chamber-window will ascend And with a corded ladder fetch her down; For which the youthful lover now is gone And this way comes he with it presently; Where, if it please you, you may intercept him. But, good my Lord, do it so cunningly That my discovery be not aimed at; For love of you, not hate unto my friend, Hath made me publisher of this pretence. DUKE Upon mine honour, he shall never know That I had any light from thee of this. PROTEUS Adieu, my Lord; Sir Valentine is coming. [Exit] [Enter VALENTINE] DUKE Sir Valentine, whither away so fast? VALENTINE Please it your grace, there is a messenger That stays to bear my letters to my friends, And I am going to deliver them. DUKE Be they of much import? VALENTINE The tenor of them doth but signify My health and happy being at your court. DUKE Nay then, no matter; stay with me awhile; I am to break with thee of some affairs That touch me near, wherein thou must be secret. 'Tis not unknown to thee that I have sought To match my friend Sir Thurio to my daughter. VALENTINE I know it well, my Lord; and, sure, the match Were rich and honourable; besides, the gentleman Is full of virtue, bounty, worth and qualities Beseeming such a wife as your fair daughter: Cannot your Grace win her to fancy him? DUKE No, trust me; she is peevish, sullen, froward, Proud, disobedient, stubborn, lacking duty, Neither regarding that she is my child Nor fearing me as if I were her father; And, may I say to thee, this pride of hers, Upon advice, hath drawn my love from her; And, where I thought the remnant of mine age Should have been cherish'd by her child-like duty, I now am full resolved to take a wife And turn her out to who will take her in: Then let her beauty be her wedding-dower; For me and my possessions she esteems not. VALENTINE What would your Grace have me to do in this? DUKE There is a lady in Verona here Whom I affect; but she is nice and coy And nought esteems my aged eloquence: Now therefore would I have thee to my tutor-- For long agone I have forgot to court; Besides, the fashion of the time is changed-- How and which way I may bestow myself To be regarded in her sun-bright eye. VALENTINE Win her with gifts, if she respect not words: Dumb jewels often in their silent kind More than quick words do move a woman's mind. DUKE But she did scorn a present that I sent her. VALENTINE A woman sometimes scorns what best contents her. Send her another; never give her o'er; For scorn at first makes after-love the more. If she do frown, 'tis not in hate of you, But rather to beget more love in you: If she do chide, 'tis not to have you gone; For why, the fools are mad, if left alone. Take no repulse, whatever she doth say; For 'get you gone,' she doth not mean 'away!' Flatter and praise, commend, extol their graces; Though ne'er so black, say they have angels' faces. That man that hath a tongue, I say, is no man, If with his tongue he cannot win a woman. DUKE But she I mean is promised by her friends Unto a youthful gentleman of worth, And kept severely from resort of men, That no man hath access by day to her. VALENTINE Why, then, I would resort to her by night. DUKE Ay, but the doors be lock'd and keys kept safe, That no man hath recourse to her by night. VALENTINE What lets but one may enter at her window? DUKE Her chamber is aloft, far from the ground, And built so shelving that one cannot climb it Without apparent hazard of his life. VALENTINE Why then, a ladder quaintly made of cords, To cast up, with a pair of anchoring hooks, Would serve to scale another Hero's tower, So bold Leander would adventure it. DUKE Now, as thou art a gentleman of blood, Advise me where I may have such a ladder. VALENTINE When would you use it? pray, sir, tell me that. DUKE This very night; for Love is like a child, That longs for every thing that he can come by. VALENTINE By seven o'clock I'll get you such a ladder. DUKE But, hark thee; I will go to her alone: How shall I best convey the ladder thither? VALENTINE It will be light, my lord, that you may bear it Under a cloak that is of any length. DUKE A cloak as long as thine will serve the turn? VALENTINE Ay, my good lord. DUKE Then let me see thy cloak: I'll get me one of such another length. VALENTINE Why, any cloak will serve the turn, my lord. DUKE How shall I fashion me to wear a cloak? I pray thee, let me feel thy cloak upon me. What letter is this same? What's here? 'To Silvia'! And here an engine fit for my proceeding. I'll be so bold to break the seal for once. [Reads] 'My thoughts do harbour with my Silvia nightly, And slaves they are to me that send them flying: O, could their master come and go as lightly, Himself would lodge where senseless they are lying! My herald thoughts in thy pure bosom rest them: While I, their king, that hither them importune, Do curse the grace that with such grace hath bless'd them, Because myself do want my servants' fortune: I curse myself, for they are sent by me, That they should harbour where their lord would be.' What's here? 'Silvia, this night I will enfranchise thee.' 'Tis so; and here's the ladder for the purpose. Why, Phaeton,--for thou art Merops' son,-- Wilt thou aspire to guide the heavenly car And with thy daring folly burn the world? Wilt thou reach stars, because they shine on thee? Go, base intruder! overweening slave! Bestow thy fawning smiles on equal mates, And think my patience, more than thy desert, Is privilege for thy departure hence: Thank me for this more than for all the favours Which all too much I have bestow'd on thee. But if thou linger in my territories Longer than swiftest expedition Will give thee time to leave our royal court, By heaven! my wrath shall far exceed the love I ever bore my daughter or thyself. Be gone! I will not hear thy vain excuse; But, as thou lovest thy life, make speed from hence. [Exit] VALENTINE And why not death rather than living torment? To die is to be banish'd from myself; And Silvia is myself: banish'd from her Is self from self: a deadly banishment! What light is light, if Silvia be not seen? What joy is joy, if Silvia be not by? Unless it be to think that she is by And feed upon the shadow of perfection Except I be by Silvia in the night, There is no music in the nightingale; Unless I look on Silvia in the day, There is no day for me to look upon; She is my essence, and I leave to be, If I be not by her fair influence Foster'd, illumined, cherish'd, kept alive. I fly not death, to fly his deadly doom: Tarry I here, I but attend on death: But, fly I hence, I fly away from life. [Enter PROTEUS and LAUNCE] PROTEUS Run, boy, run, run, and seek him out. LAUNCE Soho, soho! PROTEUS What seest thou? LAUNCE Him we go to find: there's not a hair on's head but 'tis a Valentine. PROTEUS Valentine? VALENTINE No. PROTEUS Who then? his spirit? VALENTINE Neither. PROTEUS What then? VALENTINE Nothing. LAUNCE Can nothing speak? Master, shall I strike? PROTEUS Who wouldst thou strike? LAUNCE Nothing. PROTEUS Villain, forbear. LAUNCE Why, sir, I'll strike nothing: I pray you,-- PROTEUS Sirrah, I say, forbear. Friend Valentine, a word. VALENTINE My ears are stopt and cannot hear good news, So much of bad already hath possess'd them. PROTEUS Then in dumb silence will I bury mine, For they are harsh, untuneable and bad. VALENTINE Is Silvia dead? PROTEUS No, Valentine. VALENTINE No Valentine, indeed, for sacred Silvia. Hath she forsworn me? PROTEUS No, Valentine. VALENTINE No Valentine, if Silvia have forsworn me. What is your news? LAUNCE Sir, there is a proclamation that you are vanished. PROTEUS That thou art banished--O, that's the news!-- From hence, from Silvia and from me thy friend. VALENTINE O, I have fed upon this woe already, And now excess of it will make me surfeit. Doth Silvia know that I am banished? PROTEUS Ay, ay; and she hath offer'd to the doom-- Which, unreversed, stands in effectual force-- A sea of melting pearl, which some call tears: Those at her father's churlish feet she tender'd; With them, upon her knees, her humble self; Wringing her hands, whose whiteness so became them As if but now they waxed pale for woe: But neither bended knees, pure hands held up, Sad sighs, deep groans, nor silver-shedding tears, Could penetrate her uncompassionate sire; But Valentine, if he be ta'en, must die. Besides, her intercession chafed him so, When she for thy repeal was suppliant, That to close prison he commanded her, With many bitter threats of biding there. VALENTINE No more; unless the next word that thou speak'st Have some malignant power upon my life: If so, I pray thee, breathe it in mine ear, As ending anthem of my endless dolour. PROTEUS Cease to lament for that thou canst not help, And study help for that which thou lament'st. Time is the nurse and breeder of all good. Here if thou stay, thou canst not see thy love; Besides, thy staying will abridge thy life. Hope is a lover's staff; walk hence with that And manage it against despairing thoughts. Thy letters may be here, though thou art hence; Which, being writ to me, shall be deliver'd Even in the milk-white bosom of thy love. The time now serves not to expostulate: Come, I'll convey thee through the city-gate; And, ere I part with thee, confer at large Of all that may concern thy love-affairs. As thou lovest Silvia, though not for thyself, Regard thy danger, and along with me! VALENTINE I pray thee, Launce, an if thou seest my boy, Bid him make haste and meet me at the North-gate. PROTEUS Go, sirrah, find him out. Come, Valentine. VALENTINE O my dear Silvia! Hapless Valentine! [Exeunt VALENTINE and PROTEUS] LAUNCE I am but a fool, look you; and yet I have the wit to think my master is a kind of a knave: but that's all one, if he be but one knave. He lives not now that knows me to be in love; yet I am in love; but a team of horse shall not pluck that from me; nor who 'tis I love; and yet 'tis a woman; but what woman, I will not tell myself; and yet 'tis a milkmaid; yet 'tis not a maid, for she hath had gossips; yet 'tis a maid, for she is her master's maid, and serves for wages. She hath more qualities than a water-spaniel; which is much in a bare Christian. [Pulling out a paper] Here is the cate-log of her condition. 'Imprimis: She can fetch and carry.' Why, a horse can do no more: nay, a horse cannot fetch, but only carry; therefore is she better than a jade. 'Item: She can milk;' look you, a sweet virtue in a maid with clean hands. [Enter SPEED] SPEED How now, Signior Launce! what news with your mastership? LAUNCE With my master's ship? why, it is at sea. SPEED Well, your old vice still; mistake the word. What news, then, in your paper? LAUNCE The blackest news that ever thou heardest. SPEED Why, man, how black? LAUNCE Why, as black as ink. SPEED Let me read them. LAUNCE Fie on thee, jolt-head! thou canst not read. SPEED Thou liest; I can. LAUNCE I will try thee. Tell me this: who begot thee? SPEED Marry, the son of my grandfather. LAUNCE O illiterate loiterer! it was the son of thy grandmother: this proves that thou canst not read. SPEED Come, fool, come; try me in thy paper. LAUNCE There; and St. Nicholas be thy speed! SPEED [Reads] 'Imprimis: She can milk.' LAUNCE Ay, that she can. SPEED 'Item: She brews good ale.' LAUNCE And thereof comes the proverb: 'Blessing of your heart, you brew good ale.' SPEED 'Item: She can sew.' LAUNCE That's as much as to say, Can she so? SPEED 'Item: She can knit.' LAUNCE What need a man care for a stock with a wench, when she can knit him a stock? SPEED 'Item: She can wash and scour.' LAUNCE A special virtue: for then she need not be washed and scoured. SPEED 'Item: She can spin.' LAUNCE Then may I set the world on wheels, when she can spin for her living. SPEED 'Item: She hath many nameless virtues.' LAUNCE That's as much as to say, bastard virtues; that, indeed, know not their fathers and therefore have no names. SPEED 'Here follow her vices.' LAUNCE Close at the heels of her virtues. SPEED 'Item: She is not to be kissed fasting in respect of her breath.' LAUNCE Well, that fault may be mended with a breakfast. Read on. SPEED 'Item: She hath a sweet mouth.' LAUNCE That makes amends for her sour breath. SPEED 'Item: She doth talk in her sleep.' LAUNCE It's no matter for that, so she sleep not in her talk. SPEED 'Item: She is slow in words.' LAUNCE O villain, that set this down among her vices! To be slow in words is a woman's only virtue: I pray thee, out with't, and place it for her chief virtue. SPEED 'Item: She is proud.' LAUNCE Out with that too; it was Eve's legacy, and cannot be ta'en from her. SPEED 'Item: She hath no teeth.' LAUNCE I care not for that neither, because I love crusts. SPEED 'Item: She is curst.' LAUNCE Well, the best is, she hath no teeth to bite. SPEED 'Item: She will often praise her liquor.' LAUNCE If her liquor be good, she shall: if she will not, I will; for good things should be praised. SPEED 'Item: She is too liberal.' LAUNCE Of her tongue she cannot, for that's writ down she is slow of; of her purse she shall not, for that I'll keep shut: now, of another thing she may, and that cannot I help. Well, proceed. SPEED 'Item: She hath more hair than wit, and more faults than hairs, and more wealth than faults.' LAUNCE Stop there; I'll have her: she was mine, and not mine, twice or thrice in that last article. Rehearse that once more. SPEED 'Item: She hath more hair than wit,'-- LAUNCE More hair than wit? It may be; I'll prove it. The cover of the salt hides the salt, and therefore it is more than the salt; the hair that covers the wit is more than the wit, for the greater hides the less. What's next? SPEED 'And more faults than hairs,'-- LAUNCE That's monstrous: O, that that were out! SPEED 'And more wealth than faults.' LAUNCE Why, that word makes the faults gracious. Well, I'll have her; and if it be a match, as nothing is impossible,-- SPEED What then? LAUNCE Why, then will I tell thee--that thy master stays for thee at the North-gate. SPEED For me? LAUNCE For thee! ay, who art thou? he hath stayed for a better man than thee. SPEED And must I go to him? LAUNCE Thou must run to him, for thou hast stayed so long that going will scarce serve the turn. SPEED Why didst not tell me sooner? pox of your love letters! [Exit] LAUNCE Now will he be swinged for reading my letter; an unmannerly slave, that will thrust himself into secrets! I'll after, to rejoice in the boy's correction. [Exit] THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA ACT III SCENE II The same. The DUKE's palace. [Enter DUKE and THURIO] DUKE Sir Thurio, fear not but that she will love you, Now Valentine is banish'd from her sight. THURIO Since his exile she hath despised me most, Forsworn my company and rail'd at me, That I am desperate of obtaining her. DUKE This weak impress of love is as a figure Trenched in ice, which with an hour's heat Dissolves to water and doth lose his form. A little time will melt her frozen thoughts And worthless Valentine shall be forgot. [Enter PROTEUS] How now, Sir Proteus! Is your countryman According to our proclamation gone? PROTEUS Gone, my good lord. DUKE My daughter takes his going grievously. PROTEUS A little time, my lord, will kill that grief. DUKE So I believe; but Thurio thinks not so. Proteus, the good conceit I hold of thee-- For thou hast shown some sign of good desert-- Makes me the better to confer with thee. PROTEUS Longer than I prove loyal to your grace Let me not live to look upon your grace. DUKE Thou know'st how willingly I would effect The match between Sir Thurio and my daughter. PROTEUS I do, my lord. DUKE And also, I think, thou art not ignorant How she opposes her against my will PROTEUS She did, my lord, when Valentine was here. DUKE Ay, and perversely she persevers so. What might we do to make the girl forget The love of Valentine and love Sir Thurio? PROTEUS The best way is to slander Valentine With falsehood, cowardice and poor descent, Three things that women highly hold in hate. DUKE Ay, but she'll think that it is spoke in hate. PROTEUS Ay, if his enemy deliver it: Therefore it must with circumstance be spoken By one whom she esteemeth as his friend. DUKE Then you must undertake to slander him. PROTEUS And that, my lord, I shall be loath to do: 'Tis an ill office for a gentleman, Especially against his very friend. DUKE Where your good word cannot advantage him, Your slander never can endamage him; Therefore the office is indifferent, Being entreated to it by your friend. PROTEUS You have prevail'd, my lord; if I can do it By ought that I can speak in his dispraise, She shall not long continue love to him. But say this weed her love from Valentine, It follows not that she will love Sir Thurio. THURIO Therefore, as you unwind her love from him, Lest it should ravel and be good to none, You must provide to bottom it on me; Which must be done by praising me as much As you in worth dispraise Sir Valentine. DUKE And, Proteus, we dare trust you in this kind, Because we know, on Valentine's report, You are already Love's firm votary And cannot soon revolt and change your mind. Upon this warrant shall you have access Where you with Silvia may confer at large; For she is lumpish, heavy, melancholy, And, for your friend's sake, will be glad of you; Where you may temper her by your persuasion To hate young Valentine and love my friend. PROTEUS As much as I can do, I will effect: But you, Sir Thurio, are not sharp enough; You must lay lime to tangle her desires By wailful sonnets, whose composed rhymes Should be full-fraught with serviceable vows. DUKE Ay, Much is the force of heaven-bred poesy. PROTEUS Say that upon the altar of her beauty You sacrifice your tears, your sighs, your heart: Write till your ink be dry, and with your tears Moist it again, and frame some feeling line That may discover such integrity: For Orpheus' lute was strung with poets' sinews, Whose golden touch could soften steel and stones, Make tigers tame and huge leviathans Forsake unsounded deeps to dance on sands. After your dire-lamenting elegies, Visit by night your lady's chamber-window With some sweet concert; to their instruments Tune a deploring dump: the night's dead silence Will well become such sweet-complaining grievance. This, or else nothing, will inherit her. DUKE This discipline shows thou hast been in love. THURIO And thy advice this night I'll put in practise. Therefore, sweet Proteus, my direction-giver, Let us into the city presently To sort some gentlemen well skill'd in music. I have a sonnet that will serve the turn To give the onset to thy good advice. DUKE About it, gentlemen! PROTEUS We'll wait upon your grace till after supper, And afterward determine our proceedings. DUKE Even now about it! I will pardon you. [Exeunt] THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA ACT IV SCENE I The frontiers of Mantua. A forest. [Enter certain Outlaws] First Outlaw Fellows, stand fast; I see a passenger. Second Outlaw If there be ten, shrink not, but down with 'em. [Enter VALENTINE and SPEED] Third Outlaw Stand, sir, and throw us that you have about ye: If not: we'll make you sit and rifle you. SPEED Sir, we are undone; these are the villains That all the travellers do fear so much. VALENTINE My friends,-- First Outlaw That's not so, sir: we are your enemies. Second Outlaw Peace! we'll hear him. Third Outlaw Ay, by my beard, will we, for he's a proper man. VALENTINE Then know that I have little wealth to lose: A man I am cross'd with adversity; My riches are these poor habiliments, Of which if you should here disfurnish me, You take the sum and substance that I have. Second Outlaw Whither travel you? VALENTINE To Verona. First Outlaw Whence came you? VALENTINE From Milan. Third Outlaw Have you long sojourned there? VALENTINE Some sixteen months, and longer might have stay'd, If crooked fortune had not thwarted me. First Outlaw What, were you banish'd thence? VALENTINE I was. Second Outlaw For what offence? VALENTINE For that which now torments me to rehearse: I kill'd a man, whose death I much repent; But yet I slew him manfully in fight, Without false vantage or base treachery. First Outlaw Why, ne'er repent it, if it were done so. But were you banish'd for so small a fault? VALENTINE I was, and held me glad of such a doom. Second Outlaw Have you the tongues? VALENTINE My youthful travel therein made me happy, Or else I often had been miserable. Third Outlaw By the bare scalp of Robin Hood's fat friar, This fellow were a king for our wild faction! First Outlaw We'll have him. Sirs, a word. SPEED Master, be one of them; it's an honourable kind of thievery. VALENTINE Peace, villain! Second Outlaw Tell us this: have you any thing to take to? VALENTINE Nothing but my fortune. Third Outlaw Know, then, that some of us are gentlemen, Such as the fury of ungovern'd youth Thrust from the company of awful men: Myself was from Verona banished For practising to steal away a lady, An heir, and near allied unto the duke. Second Outlaw And I from Mantua, for a gentleman, Who, in my mood, I stabb'd unto the heart. First Outlaw And I for such like petty crimes as these, But to the purpose--for we cite our faults, That they may hold excus'd our lawless lives; And partly, seeing you are beautified With goodly shape and by your own report A linguist and a man of such perfection As we do in our quality much want-- Second Outlaw Indeed, because you are a banish'd man, Therefore, above the rest, we parley to you: Are you content to be our general? To make a virtue of necessity And live, as we do, in this wilderness? Third Outlaw What say'st thou? wilt thou be of our consort? Say ay, and be the captain of us all: We'll do thee homage and be ruled by thee, Love thee as our commander and our king. First Outlaw But if thou scorn our courtesy, thou diest. Second Outlaw Thou shalt not live to brag what we have offer'd. VALENTINE I take your offer and will live with you, Provided that you do no outrages On silly women or poor passengers. Third Outlaw No, we detest such vile base practises. Come, go with us, we'll bring thee to our crews, And show thee all the treasure we have got, Which, with ourselves, all rest at thy dispose. [Exeunt] THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA ACT IV SCENE II Milan. Outside the DUKE's palace, under SILVIA's chamber. [Enter PROTEUS] PROTEUS Already have I been false to Valentine And now I must be as unjust to Thurio. Under the colour of commending him, I have access my own love to prefer: But Silvia is too fair, too true, too holy, To be corrupted with my worthless gifts. When I protest true loyalty to her, She twits me with my falsehood to my friend; When to her beauty I commend my vows, She bids me think how I have been forsworn In breaking faith with Julia whom I loved: And notwithstanding all her sudden quips, The least whereof would quell a lover's hope, Yet, spaniel-like, the more she spurns my love, The more it grows and fawneth on her still. But here comes Thurio: now must we to her window, And give some evening music to her ear. [Enter THURIO and Musicians] THURIO How now, Sir Proteus, are you crept before us? PROTEUS Ay, gentle Thurio: for you know that love Will creep in service where it cannot go. THURIO Ay, but I hope, sir, that you love not here. PROTEUS Sir, but I do; or else I would be hence. THURIO Who? Silvia? PROTEUS Ay, Silvia; for your sake. THURIO I thank you for your own. Now, gentlemen, Let's tune, and to it lustily awhile. [Enter, at a distance, Host, and JULIA in boy's clothes] Host Now, my young guest, methinks you're allycholly: I pray you, why is it? JULIA Marry, mine host, because I cannot be merry. Host Come, we'll have you merry: I'll bring you where you shall hear music and see the gentleman that you asked for. JULIA But shall I hear him speak? Host Ay, that you shall. JULIA That will be music. [Music plays] Host Hark, hark! JULIA Is he among these? Host Ay: but, peace! let's hear 'em. SONG. Who is Silvia? what is she, That all our swains commend her? Holy, fair and wise is she; The heaven such grace did lend her, That she might admired be. Is she kind as she is fair? For beauty lives with kindness. Love doth to her eyes repair, To help him of his blindness, And, being help'd, inhabits there. Then to Silvia let us sing, That Silvia is excelling; She excels each mortal thing Upon the dull earth dwelling: To her let us garlands bring. Host How now! are you sadder than you were before? How do you, man? the music likes you not. JULIA You mistake; the musician likes me not. Host Why, my pretty youth? JULIA He plays false, father. Host How? out of tune on the strings? JULIA Not so; but yet so false that he grieves my very heart-strings. Host You have a quick ear. JULIA Ay, I would I were deaf; it makes me have a slow heart. Host I perceive you delight not in music. JULIA Not a whit, when it jars so. Host Hark, what fine change is in the music! JULIA Ay, that change is the spite. Host You would have them always play but one thing? JULIA I would always have one play but one thing. But, host, doth this Sir Proteus that we talk on Often resort unto this gentlewoman? Host I tell you what Launce, his man, told me: he loved her out of all nick. JULIA Where is Launce? Host Gone to seek his dog; which tomorrow, by his master's command, he must carry for a present to his lady. JULIA Peace! stand aside: the company parts. PROTEUS Sir Thurio, fear not you: I will so plead That you shall say my cunning drift excels. THURIO Where meet we? PROTEUS At Saint Gregory's well. THURIO Farewell. [Exeunt THURIO and Musicians] [Enter SILVIA above] PROTEUS Madam, good even to your ladyship. SILVIA I thank you for your music, gentlemen. Who is that that spake? PROTEUS One, lady, if you knew his pure heart's truth, You would quickly learn to know him by his voice. SILVIA Sir Proteus, as I take it. PROTEUS Sir Proteus, gentle lady, and your servant. SILVIA What's your will? PROTEUS That I may compass yours. SILVIA You have your wish; my will is even this: That presently you hie you home to bed. Thou subtle, perjured, false, disloyal man! Think'st thou I am so shallow, so conceitless, To be seduced by thy flattery, That hast deceived so many with thy vows? Return, return, and make thy love amends. For me, by this pale queen of night I swear, I am so far from granting thy request That I despise thee for thy wrongful suit, And by and by intend to chide myself Even for this time I spend in talking to thee. PROTEUS I grant, sweet love, that I did love a lady; But she is dead. JULIA [Aside] 'Twere false, if I should speak it; For I am sure she is not buried. SILVIA Say that she be; yet Valentine thy friend Survives; to whom, thyself art witness, I am betroth'd: and art thou not ashamed To wrong him with thy importunacy? PROTEUS I likewise hear that Valentine is dead. SILVIA And so suppose am I; for in his grave Assure thyself my love is buried. PROTEUS Sweet lady, let me rake it from the earth. SILVIA Go to thy lady's grave and call hers thence, Or, at the least, in hers sepulchre thine. JULIA [Aside] He heard not that. PROTEUS Madam, if your heart be so obdurate, Vouchsafe me yet your picture for my love, The picture that is hanging in your chamber; To that I'll speak, to that I'll sigh and weep: For since the substance of your perfect self Is else devoted, I am but a shadow; And to your shadow will I make true love. JULIA [Aside] If 'twere a substance, you would, sure, deceive it, And make it but a shadow, as I am. SILVIA I am very loath to be your idol, sir; But since your falsehood shall become you well To worship shadows and adore false shapes, Send to me in the morning and I'll send it: And so, good rest. PROTEUS As wretches have o'ernight That wait for execution in the morn. [Exeunt PROTEUS and SILVIA severally] JULIA Host, will you go? Host By my halidom, I was fast asleep. JULIA Pray you, where lies Sir Proteus? Host Marry, at my house. Trust me, I think 'tis almost day. JULIA Not so; but it hath been the longest night That e'er I watch'd and the most heaviest. [Exeunt] THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA ACT IV SCENE III The same. [Enter EGLAMOUR] EGLAMOUR This is the hour that Madam Silvia Entreated me to call and know her mind: There's some great matter she'ld employ me in. Madam, madam! [Enter SILVIA above] SILVIA Who calls? EGLAMOUR Your servant and your friend; One that attends your ladyship's command. SILVIA Sir Eglamour, a thousand times good morrow. EGLAMOUR As many, worthy lady, to yourself: According to your ladyship's impose, I am thus early come to know what service It is your pleasure to command me in. SILVIA O Eglamour, thou art a gentleman-- Think not I flatter, for I swear I do not-- Valiant, wise, remorseful, well accomplish'd: Thou art not ignorant what dear good will I bear unto the banish'd Valentine, Nor how my father would enforce me marry Vain Thurio, whom my very soul abhors. Thyself hast loved; and I have heard thee say No grief did ever come so near thy heart As when thy lady and thy true love died, Upon whose grave thou vow'dst pure chastity. Sir Eglamour, I would to Valentine, To Mantua, where I hear he makes abode; And, for the ways are dangerous to pass, I do desire thy worthy company, Upon whose faith and honour I repose. Urge not my father's anger, Eglamour, But think upon my grief, a lady's grief, And on the justice of my flying hence, To keep me from a most unholy match, Which heaven and fortune still rewards with plagues. I do desire thee, even from a heart As full of sorrows as the sea of sands, To bear me company and go with me: If not, to hide what I have said to thee, That I may venture to depart alone. EGLAMOUR Madam, I pity much your grievances; Which since I know they virtuously are placed, I give consent to go along with you, Recking as little what betideth me As much I wish all good befortune you. When will you go? SILVIA This evening coming. EGLAMOUR Where shall I meet you? SILVIA At Friar Patrick's cell, Where I intend holy confession. EGLAMOUR I will not fail your ladyship. Good morrow, gentle lady. SILVIA Good morrow, kind Sir Eglamour. [Exeunt severally] THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA ACT IV SCENE IV The same. [Enter LAUNCE, with his his Dog] LAUNCE When a man's servant shall play the cur with him, look you, it goes hard: one that I brought up of a puppy; one that I saved from drowning, when three or four of his blind brothers and sisters went to it. I have taught him, even as one would say precisely, 'thus I would teach a dog.' I was sent to deliver him as a present to Mistress Silvia from my master; and I came no sooner into the dining-chamber but he steps me to her trencher and steals her capon's leg: O, 'tis a foul thing when a cur cannot keep himself in all companies! I would have, as one should say, one that takes upon him to be a dog indeed, to be, as it were, a dog at all things. If I had not had more wit than he, to take a fault upon me that he did, I think verily he had been hanged for't; sure as I live, he had suffered for't; you shall judge. He thrusts me himself into the company of three or four gentlemanlike dogs under the duke's table: he had not been there--bless the mark!--a pissing while, but all the chamber smelt him. 'Out with the dog!' says one: 'What cur is that?' says another: 'Whip him out' says the third: 'Hang him up' says the duke. I, having been acquainted with the smell before, knew it was Crab, and goes me to the fellow that whips the dogs: 'Friend,' quoth I, 'you mean to whip the dog?' 'Ay, marry, do I,' quoth he. 'You do him the more wrong,' quoth I; ''twas I did the thing you wot of.' He makes me no more ado, but whips me out of the chamber. How many masters would do this for his servant? Nay, I'll be sworn, I have sat in the stocks for puddings he hath stolen, otherwise he had been executed; I have stood on the pillory for geese he hath killed, otherwise he had suffered for't. Thou thinkest not of this now. Nay, I remember the trick you served me when I took my leave of Madam Silvia: did not I bid thee still mark me and do as I do? when didst thou see me heave up my leg and make water against a gentlewoman's farthingale? didst thou ever see me do such a trick? [Enter PROTEUS and JULIA] PROTEUS Sebastian is thy name? I like thee well And will employ thee in some service presently. JULIA In what you please: I'll do what I can. PROTEUS I hope thou wilt. [To LAUNCE] How now, you whoreson peasant! Where have you been these two days loitering? LAUNCE Marry, sir, I carried Mistress Silvia the dog you bade me. PROTEUS And what says she to my little jewel? LAUNCE Marry, she says your dog was a cur, and tells you currish thanks is good enough for such a present. PROTEUS But she received my dog? LAUNCE No, indeed, did she not: here have I brought him back again. PROTEUS What, didst thou offer her this from me? LAUNCE Ay, sir: the other squirrel was stolen from me by the hangman boys in the market-place: and then I offered her mine own, who is a dog as big as ten of yours, and therefore the gift the greater. PROTEUS Go get thee hence, and find my dog again, Or ne'er return again into my sight. Away, I say! stay'st thou to vex me here? [Exit LAUNCE] A slave, that still an end turns me to shame! Sebastian, I have entertained thee, Partly that I have need of such a youth That can with some discretion do my business, For 'tis no trusting to yond foolish lout, But chiefly for thy face and thy behavior, Which, if my augury deceive me not, Witness good bringing up, fortune and truth: Therefore know thou, for this I entertain thee. Go presently and take this ring with thee, Deliver it to Madam Silvia: She loved me well deliver'd it to me. JULIA It seems you loved not her, to leave her token. She is dead, belike? PROTEUS Not so; I think she lives. JULIA Alas! PROTEUS Why dost thou cry 'alas'? JULIA I cannot choose But pity her. PROTEUS Wherefore shouldst thou pity her? JULIA Because methinks that she loved you as well As you do love your lady Silvia: She dreams of him that has forgot her love; You dote on her that cares not for your love. 'Tis pity love should be so contrary; And thinking of it makes me cry 'alas!' PROTEUS Well, give her that ring and therewithal This letter. That's her chamber. Tell my lady I claim the promise for her heavenly picture. Your message done, hie home unto my chamber, Where thou shalt find me, sad and solitary. [Exit] JULIA How many women would do such a message? Alas, poor Proteus! thou hast entertain'd A fox to be the shepherd of thy lambs. Alas, poor fool! why do I pity him That with his very heart despiseth me? Because he loves her, he despiseth me; Because I love him I must pity him. This ring I gave him when he parted from me, To bind him to remember my good will; And now am I, unhappy messenger, To plead for that which I would not obtain, To carry that which I would have refused, To praise his faith which I would have dispraised. I am my master's true-confirmed love; But cannot be true servant to my master, Unless I prove false traitor to myself. Yet will I woo for him, but yet so coldly As, heaven it knows, I would not have him speed. [Enter SILVIA, attended] Gentlewoman, good day! I pray you, be my mean To bring me where to speak with Madam Silvia. SILVIA What would you with her, if that I be she? JULIA If you be she, I do entreat your patience To hear me speak the message I am sent on. SILVIA From whom? JULIA From my master, Sir Proteus, madam. SILVIA O, he sends you for a picture. JULIA Ay, madam. SILVIA Ursula, bring my picture here. Go give your master this: tell him from me, One Julia, that his changing thoughts forget, Would better fit his chamber than this shadow. JULIA Madam, please you peruse this letter.-- Pardon me, madam; I have unadvised Deliver'd you a paper that I should not: This is the letter to your ladyship. SILVIA I pray thee, let me look on that again. JULIA It may not be; good madam, pardon me. SILVIA There, hold! I will not look upon your master's lines: I know they are stuff'd with protestations And full of new-found oaths; which he will break As easily as I do tear his paper. JULIA Madam, he sends your ladyship this ring. SILVIA The more shame for him that he sends it me; For I have heard him say a thousand times His Julia gave it him at his departure. Though his false finger have profaned the ring, Mine shall not do his Julia so much wrong. JULIA She thanks you. SILVIA What say'st thou? JULIA I thank you, madam, that you tender her. Poor gentlewoman! my master wrongs her much. SILVIA Dost thou know her? JULIA Almost as well as I do know myself: To think upon her woes I do protest That I have wept a hundred several times. SILVIA Belike she thinks that Proteus hath forsook her. JULIA I think she doth; and that's her cause of sorrow. SILVIA Is she not passing fair? JULIA She hath been fairer, madam, than she is: When she did think my master loved her well, She, in my judgment, was as fair as you: But since she did neglect her looking-glass And threw her sun-expelling mask away, The air hath starved the roses in her cheeks And pinch'd the lily-tincture of her face, That now she is become as black as I. SILVIA How tall was she? JULIA About my stature; for at Pentecost, When all our pageants of delight were play'd, Our youth got me to play the woman's part, And I was trimm'd in Madam Julia's gown, Which served me as fit, by all men's judgments, As if the garment had been made for me: Therefore I know she is about my height. And at that time I made her weep agood, For I did play a lamentable part: Madam, 'twas Ariadne passioning For Theseus' perjury and unjust flight; Which I so lively acted with my tears That my poor mistress, moved therewithal, Wept bitterly; and would I might be dead If I in thought felt not her very sorrow! SILVIA She is beholding to thee, gentle youth. Alas, poor lady, desolate and left! I weep myself to think upon thy words. Here, youth, there is my purse; I give thee this For thy sweet mistress' sake, because thou lovest her. Farewell. [Exit SILVIA, with attendants] JULIA And she shall thank you for't, if e'er you know her. A virtuous gentlewoman, mild and beautiful I hope my master's suit will be but cold, Since she respects my mistress' love so much. Alas, how love can trifle with itself! Here is her picture: let me see; I think, If I had such a tire, this face of mine Were full as lovely as is this of hers: And yet the painter flatter'd her a little, Unless I flatter with myself too much. Her hair is auburn, mine is perfect yellow: If that be all the difference in his love, I'll get me such a colour'd periwig. Her eyes are grey as glass, and so are mine: Ay, but her forehead's low, and mine's as high. What should it be that he respects in her But I can make respective in myself, If this fond Love were not a blinded god? Come, shadow, come and take this shadow up, For 'tis thy rival. O thou senseless form, Thou shalt be worshipp'd, kiss'd, loved and adored! And, were there sense in his idolatry, My substance should be statue in thy stead. I'll use thee kindly for thy mistress' sake, That used me so; or else, by Jove I vow, I should have scratch'd out your unseeing eyes To make my master out of love with thee! [Exit] THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA ACT V SCENE I Milan. An abbey. [Enter EGLAMOUR] EGLAMOUR The sun begins to gild the western sky; And now it is about the very hour That Silvia, at Friar Patrick's cell, should meet me. She will not fail, for lovers break not hours, Unless it be to come before their time; So much they spur their expedition. See where she comes. [Enter SILVIA] Lady, a happy evening! SILVIA Amen, amen! Go on, good Eglamour, Out at the postern by the abbey-wall: I fear I am attended by some spies. EGLAMOUR Fear not: the forest is not three leagues off; If we recover that, we are sure enough. [Exeunt] THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA ACT V SCENE II The same. The DUKE's palace. [Enter THURIO, PROTEUS, and JULIA] THURIO Sir Proteus, what says Silvia to my suit? PROTEUS O, sir, I find her milder than she was; And yet she takes exceptions at your person. THURIO What, that my leg is too long? PROTEUS No; that it is too little. THURIO I'll wear a boot, to make it somewhat rounder. JULIA [Aside] But love will not be spurr'd to what it loathes. THURIO What says she to my face? PROTEUS She says it is a fair one. THURIO Nay then, the wanton lies; my face is black. PROTEUS But pearls are fair; and the old saying is, Black men are pearls in beauteous ladies' eyes. JULIA [Aside] 'Tis true; such pearls as put out ladies' eyes; For I had rather wink than look on them. THURIO How likes she my discourse? PROTEUS Ill, when you talk of war. THURIO But well, when I discourse of love and peace? JULIA [Aside] But better, indeed, when you hold your peace. THURIO What says she to my valour? PROTEUS O, sir, she makes no doubt of that. JULIA [Aside] She needs not, when she knows it cowardice. THURIO What says she to my birth? PROTEUS That you are well derived. JULIA [Aside] True; from a gentleman to a fool. THURIO Considers she my possessions? PROTEUS O, ay; and pities them. THURIO Wherefore? JULIA [Aside] That such an ass should owe them. PROTEUS That they are out by lease. JULIA Here comes the duke. [Enter DUKE] DUKE How now, Sir Proteus! how now, Thurio! Which of you saw Sir Eglamour of late? THURIO Not I. PROTEUS Nor I. DUKE Saw you my daughter? PROTEUS Neither. DUKE Why then, She's fled unto that peasant Valentine; And Eglamour is in her company. 'Tis true; for Friar Laurence met them both, As he in penance wander'd through the forest; Him he knew well, and guess'd that it was she, But, being mask'd, he was not sure of it; Besides, she did intend confession At Patrick's cell this even; and there she was not; These likelihoods confirm her flight from hence. Therefore, I pray you, stand not to discourse, But mount you presently and meet with me Upon the rising of the mountain-foot That leads towards Mantua, whither they are fled: Dispatch, sweet gentlemen, and follow me. [Exit] THURIO Why, this it is to be a peevish girl, That flies her fortune when it follows her. I'll after, more to be revenged on Eglamour Than for the love of reckless Silvia. [Exit] PROTEUS And I will follow, more for Silvia's love Than hate of Eglamour that goes with her. [Exit] JULIA And I will follow, more to cross that love Than hate for Silvia that is gone for love. [Exit] THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA ACT V SCENE III The frontiers of Mantua. The forest. [Enter Outlaws with SILVIA] First Outlaw Come, come, Be patient; we must bring you to our captain. SILVIA A thousand more mischances than this one Have learn'd me how to brook this patiently. Second Outlaw Come, bring her away. First Outlaw Where is the gentleman that was with her? Third Outlaw Being nimble-footed, he hath outrun us, But Moyses and Valerius follow him. Go thou with her to the west end of the wood; There is our captain: we'll follow him that's fled; The thicket is beset; he cannot 'scape. First Outlaw Come, I must bring you to our captain's cave: Fear not; he bears an honourable mind, And will not use a woman lawlessly. SILVIA O Valentine, this I endure for thee! [Exeunt] THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA ACT V SCENE IV Another part of the forest. [Enter VALENTINE] VALENTINE How use doth breed a habit in a man! This shadowy desert, unfrequented woods, I better brook than flourishing peopled towns: Here can I sit alone, unseen of any, And to the nightingale's complaining notes Tune my distresses and record my woes. O thou that dost inhabit in my breast, Leave not the mansion so long tenantless, Lest, growing ruinous, the building fall And leave no memory of what it was! Repair me with thy presence, Silvia; Thou gentle nymph, cherish thy forlorn swain! What halloing and what stir is this to-day? These are my mates, that make their wills their law, Have some unhappy passenger in chase. They love me well; yet I have much to do To keep them from uncivil outrages. Withdraw thee, Valentine: who's this comes here? [Enter PROTEUS, SILVIA, and JULIA] PROTEUS Madam, this service I have done for you, Though you respect not aught your servant doth, To hazard life and rescue you from him That would have forced your honour and your love; Vouchsafe me, for my meed, but one fair look; A smaller boon than this I cannot beg And less than this, I am sure, you cannot give. VALENTINE [Aside] How like a dream is this I see and hear! Love, lend me patience to forbear awhile. SILVIA O miserable, unhappy that I am! PROTEUS Unhappy were you, madam, ere I came; But by my coming I have made you happy. SILVIA By thy approach thou makest me most unhappy. JULIA [Aside] And me, when he approacheth to your presence. SILVIA Had I been seized by a hungry lion, I would have been a breakfast to the beast, Rather than have false Proteus rescue me. O, Heaven be judge how I love Valentine, Whose life's as tender to me as my soul! And full as much, for more there cannot be, I do detest false perjured Proteus. Therefore be gone; solicit me no more. PROTEUS What dangerous action, stood it next to death, Would I not undergo for one calm look! O, 'tis the curse in love, and still approved, When women cannot love where they're beloved! SILVIA When Proteus cannot love where he's beloved. Read over Julia's heart, thy first best love, For whose dear sake thou didst then rend thy faith Into a thousand oaths; and all those oaths Descended into perjury, to love me. Thou hast no faith left now, unless thou'dst two; And that's far worse than none; better have none Than plural faith which is too much by one: Thou counterfeit to thy true friend! PROTEUS In love Who respects friend? SILVIA All men but Proteus. PROTEUS Nay, if the gentle spirit of moving words Can no way change you to a milder form, I'll woo you like a soldier, at arms' end, And love you 'gainst the nature of love,--force ye. SILVIA O heaven! PROTEUS I'll force thee yield to my desire. VALENTINE Ruffian, let go that rude uncivil touch, Thou friend of an ill fashion! PROTEUS Valentine! VALENTINE Thou common friend, that's without faith or love, For such is a friend now; treacherous man! Thou hast beguiled my hopes; nought but mine eye Could have persuaded me: now I dare not say I have one friend alive; thou wouldst disprove me. Who should be trusted, when one's own right hand Is perjured to the bosom? Proteus, I am sorry I must never trust thee more, But count the world a stranger for thy sake. The private wound is deepest: O time most accurst, 'Mongst all foes that a friend should be the worst! PROTEUS My shame and guilt confounds me. Forgive me, Valentine: if hearty sorrow Be a sufficient ransom for offence, I tender 't here; I do as truly suffer As e'er I did commit. VALENTINE Then I am paid; And once again I do receive thee honest. Who by repentance is not satisfied Is nor of heaven nor earth, for these are pleased. By penitence the Eternal's wrath's appeased: And, that my love may appear plain and free, All that was mine in Silvia I give thee. JULIA O me unhappy! [Swoons] PROTEUS Look to the boy. VALENTINE Why, boy! why, wag! how now! what's the matter? Look up; speak. JULIA O good sir, my master charged me to deliver a ring to Madam Silvia, which, out of my neglect, was never done. PROTEUS Where is that ring, boy? JULIA Here 'tis; this is it. PROTEUS How! let me see: Why, this is the ring I gave to Julia. JULIA O, cry you mercy, sir, I have mistook: This is the ring you sent to Silvia. PROTEUS But how camest thou by this ring? At my depart I gave this unto Julia. JULIA And Julia herself did give it me; And Julia herself hath brought it hither. PROTEUS How! Julia! JULIA Behold her that gave aim to all thy oaths, And entertain'd 'em deeply in her heart. How oft hast thou with perjury cleft the root! O Proteus, let this habit make thee blush! Be thou ashamed that I have took upon me Such an immodest raiment, if shame live In a disguise of love: It is the lesser blot, modesty finds, Women to change their shapes than men their minds. PROTEUS Than men their minds! 'tis true. O heaven! were man But constant, he were perfect. That one error Fills him with faults; makes him run through all the sins: Inconstancy falls off ere it begins. What is in Silvia's face, but I may spy More fresh in Julia's with a constant eye? VALENTINE Come, come, a hand from either: Let me be blest to make this happy close; 'Twere pity two such friends should be long foes. PROTEUS Bear witness, Heaven, I have my wish for ever. JULIA And I mine. [Enter Outlaws, with DUKE and THURIO] Outlaws A prize, a prize, a prize! VALENTINE Forbear, forbear, I say! it is my lord the duke. Your grace is welcome to a man disgraced, Banished Valentine. DUKE Sir Valentine! THURIO Yonder is Silvia; and Silvia's mine. VALENTINE Thurio, give back, or else embrace thy death; Come not within the measure of my wrath; Do not name Silvia thine; if once again, Verona shall not hold thee. Here she stands; Take but possession of her with a touch: I dare thee but to breathe upon my love. THURIO Sir Valentine, I care not for her, I; I hold him but a fool that will endanger His body for a girl that loves him not: I claim her not, and therefore she is thine. DUKE The more degenerate and base art thou, To make such means for her as thou hast done And leave her on such slight conditions. Now, by the honour of my ancestry, I do applaud thy spirit, Valentine, And think thee worthy of an empress' love: Know then, I here forget all former griefs, Cancel all grudge, repeal thee home again, Plead a new state in thy unrivall'd merit, To which I thus subscribe: Sir Valentine, Thou art a gentleman and well derived; Take thou thy Silvia, for thou hast deserved her. VALENTINE I thank your grace; the gift hath made me happy. I now beseech you, for your daughter's sake, To grant one boom that I shall ask of you. DUKE I grant it, for thine own, whate'er it be. VALENTINE These banish'd men that I have kept withal Are men endued with worthy qualities: Forgive them what they have committed here And let them be recall'd from their exile: They are reformed, civil, full of good And fit for great employment, worthy lord. DUKE Thou hast prevail'd; I pardon them and thee: Dispose of them as thou know'st their deserts. Come, let us go: we will include all jars With triumphs, mirth and rare solemnity. VALENTINE And, as we walk along, I dare be bold With our discourse to make your grace to smile. What think you of this page, my lord? DUKE I think the boy hath grace in him; he blushes. VALENTINE I warrant you, my lord, more grace than boy. DUKE What mean you by that saying? VALENTINE Please you, I'll tell you as we pass along, That you will wonder what hath fortuned. Come, Proteus; 'tis your penance but to hear The story of your loves discovered: That done, our day of marriage shall be yours; One feast, one house, one mutual happiness. [Exeunt] THE WINTER'S TALE DRAMATIS PERSONAE LEONTES king of Sicilia. MAMILLIUS young prince of Sicilia. CAMILLO | | ANTIGONUS | | Four Lords of Sicilia. CLEOMENES | | DION | POLIXENES King of Bohemia. FLORIZEL Prince of Bohemia. ARCHIDAMUS a Lord of Bohemia. Old Shepherd reputed father of Perdita. (Shepherd:) Clown his son. AUTOLYCUS a rogue. A Mariner. (Mariner:) A Gaoler. (Gaoler:) HERMIONE queen to Leontes. PERDITA daughter to Leontes and Hermione. PAULINA wife to Antigonus. EMILIA a lady attending on Hermione, MOPSA | | Shepherdesses. DORCAS | Other Lords and Gentlemen, Ladies, Officers, and Servants, Shepherds, and Shepherdesses. (First Lord:) (Gentleman:) (First Gentleman:) (Second Gentleman:) (Third Gentleman:) (First Lady:) (Second Lady:) (Officer:) (Servant:) (First Servant:) (Second Servant:) Time as Chorus. SCENE Sicilia, and Bohemia. THE WINTER'S TALE ACT I SCENE I Antechamber in LEONTES' palace. [Enter CAMILLO and ARCHIDAMUS] ARCHIDAMUS If you shall chance, Camillo, to visit Bohemia, on the like occasion whereon my services are now on foot, you shall see, as I have said, great difference betwixt our Bohemia and your Sicilia. CAMILLO I think, this coming summer, the King of Sicilia means to pay Bohemia the visitation which he justly owes him. ARCHIDAMUS Wherein our entertainment shall shame us we will be justified in our loves; for indeed-- CAMILLO Beseech you,-- ARCHIDAMUS Verily, I speak it in the freedom of my knowledge: we cannot with such magnificence--in so rare--I know not what to say. We will give you sleepy drinks, that your senses, unintelligent of our insufficience, may, though they cannot praise us, as little accuse us. CAMILLO You pay a great deal too dear for what's given freely. ARCHIDAMUS Believe me, I speak as my understanding instructs me and as mine honesty puts it to utterance. CAMILLO Sicilia cannot show himself over-kind to Bohemia. They were trained together in their childhoods; and there rooted betwixt them then such an affection, which cannot choose but branch now. Since their more mature dignities and royal necessities made separation of their society, their encounters, though not personal, have been royally attorneyed with interchange of gifts, letters, loving embassies; that they have seemed to be together, though absent, shook hands, as over a vast, and embraced, as it were, from the ends of opposed winds. The heavens continue their loves! ARCHIDAMUS I think there is not in the world either malice or matter to alter it. You have an unspeakable comfort of your young prince Mamillius: it is a gentleman of the greatest promise that ever came into my note. CAMILLO I very well agree with you in the hopes of him: it is a gallant child; one that indeed physics the subject, makes old hearts fresh: they that went on crutches ere he was born desire yet their life to see him a man. ARCHIDAMUS Would they else be content to die? CAMILLO Yes; if there were no other excuse why they should desire to live. ARCHIDAMUS If the king had no son, they would desire to live on crutches till he had one. [Exeunt] THE WINTER'S TALE ACT I SCENE II A room of state in the same. [Enter LEONTES, HERMIONE, MAMILLIUS, POLIXENES, CAMILLO, and Attendants] POLIXENES Nine changes of the watery star hath been The shepherd's note since we have left our throne Without a burthen: time as long again Would be find up, my brother, with our thanks; And yet we should, for perpetuity, Go hence in debt: and therefore, like a cipher, Yet standing in rich place, I multiply With one 'We thank you' many thousands moe That go before it. LEONTES Stay your thanks a while; And pay them when you part. POLIXENES Sir, that's to-morrow. I am question'd by my fears, of what may chance Or breed upon our absence; that may blow No sneaping winds at home, to make us say 'This is put forth too truly:' besides, I have stay'd To tire your royalty. LEONTES We are tougher, brother, Than you can put us to't. POLIXENES No longer stay. LEONTES One seven-night longer. POLIXENES Very sooth, to-morrow. LEONTES We'll part the time between's then; and in that I'll no gainsaying. POLIXENES Press me not, beseech you, so. There is no tongue that moves, none, none i' the world, So soon as yours could win me: so it should now, Were there necessity in your request, although 'Twere needful I denied it. My affairs Do even drag me homeward: which to hinder Were in your love a whip to me; my stay To you a charge and trouble: to save both, Farewell, our brother. LEONTES Tongue-tied, our queen? speak you. HERMIONE I had thought, sir, to have held my peace until You have drawn oaths from him not to stay. You, sir, Charge him too coldly. Tell him, you are sure All in Bohemia's well; this satisfaction The by-gone day proclaim'd: say this to him, He's beat from his best ward. LEONTES Well said, Hermione. HERMIONE To tell, he longs to see his son, were strong: But let him say so then, and let him go; But let him swear so, and he shall not stay, We'll thwack him hence with distaffs. Yet of your royal presence I'll adventure The borrow of a week. When at Bohemia You take my lord, I'll give him my commission To let him there a month behind the gest Prefix'd for's parting: yet, good deed, Leontes, I love thee not a jar o' the clock behind What lady-she her lord. You'll stay? POLIXENES No, madam. HERMIONE Nay, but you will? POLIXENES I may not, verily. HERMIONE Verily! You put me off with limber vows; but I, Though you would seek to unsphere the stars with oaths, Should yet say 'Sir, no going.' Verily, You shall not go: a lady's 'Verily' 's As potent as a lord's. Will you go yet? Force me to keep you as a prisoner, Not like a guest; so you shall pay your fees When you depart, and save your thanks. How say you? My prisoner? or my guest? by your dread 'Verily,' One of them you shall be. POLIXENES Your guest, then, madam: To be your prisoner should import offending; Which is for me less easy to commit Than you to punish. HERMIONE Not your gaoler, then, But your kind hostess. Come, I'll question you Of my lord's tricks and yours when you were boys: You were pretty lordings then? POLIXENES We were, fair queen, Two lads that thought there was no more behind But such a day to-morrow as to-day, And to be boy eternal. HERMIONE Was not my lord The verier wag o' the two? POLIXENES We were as twinn'd lambs that did frisk i' the sun, And bleat the one at the other: what we changed Was innocence for innocence; we knew not The doctrine of ill-doing, nor dream'd That any did. Had we pursued that life, And our weak spirits ne'er been higher rear'd With stronger blood, we should have answer'd heaven Boldly 'not guilty;' the imposition clear'd Hereditary ours. HERMIONE By this we gather You have tripp'd since. POLIXENES O my most sacred lady! Temptations have since then been born to's; for In those unfledged days was my wife a girl; Your precious self had then not cross'd the eyes Of my young play-fellow. HERMIONE Grace to boot! Of this make no conclusion, lest you say Your queen and I are devils: yet go on; The offences we have made you do we'll answer, If you first sinn'd with us and that with us You did continue fault and that you slipp'd not With any but with us. LEONTES Is he won yet? HERMIONE He'll stay my lord. LEONTES At my request he would not. Hermione, my dearest, thou never spokest To better purpose. HERMIONE Never? LEONTES Never, but once. HERMIONE What! have I twice said well? when was't before? I prithee tell me; cram's with praise, and make's As fat as tame things: one good deed dying tongueless Slaughters a thousand waiting upon that. Our praises are our wages: you may ride's With one soft kiss a thousand furlongs ere With spur we beat an acre. But to the goal: My last good deed was to entreat his stay: What was my first? it has an elder sister, Or I mistake you: O, would her name were Grace! But once before I spoke to the purpose: when? Nay, let me have't; I long. LEONTES Why, that was when Three crabbed months had sour'd themselves to death, Ere I could make thee open thy white hand And clap thyself my love: then didst thou utter 'I am yours for ever.' HERMIONE 'Tis grace indeed. Why, lo you now, I have spoke to the purpose twice: The one for ever earn'd a royal husband; The other for some while a friend. LEONTES [Aside] Too hot, too hot! To mingle friendship far is mingling bloods. I have tremor cordis on me: my heart dances; But not for joy; not joy. This entertainment May a free face put on, derive a liberty From heartiness, from bounty, fertile bosom, And well become the agent; 't may, I grant; But to be paddling palms and pinching fingers, As now they are, and making practised smiles, As in a looking-glass, and then to sigh, as 'twere The mort o' the deer; O, that is entertainment My bosom likes not, nor my brows! Mamillius, Art thou my boy? MAMILLIUS Ay, my good lord. LEONTES I' fecks! Why, that's my bawcock. What, hast smutch'd thy nose? They say it is a copy out of mine. Come, captain, We must be neat; not neat, but cleanly, captain: And yet the steer, the heifer and the calf Are all call'd neat.--Still virginalling Upon his palm!--How now, you wanton calf! Art thou my calf? MAMILLIUS Yes, if you will, my lord. LEONTES Thou want'st a rough pash and the shoots that I have, To be full like me: yet they say we are Almost as like as eggs; women say so, That will say anything but were they false As o'er-dyed blacks, as wind, as waters, false As dice are to be wish'd by one that fixes No bourn 'twixt his and mine, yet were it true To say this boy were like me. Come, sir page, Look on me with your welkin eye: sweet villain! Most dear'st! my collop! Can thy dam?--may't be?-- Affection! thy intention stabs the centre: Thou dost make possible things not so held, Communicatest with dreams;--how can this be?-- With what's unreal thou coactive art, And fellow'st nothing: then 'tis very credent Thou mayst co-join with something; and thou dost, And that beyond commission, and I find it, And that to the infection of my brains And hardening of my brows. POLIXENES What means Sicilia? HERMIONE He something seems unsettled. POLIXENES How, my lord! What cheer? how is't with you, best brother? HERMIONE You look as if you held a brow of much distraction Are you moved, my lord? LEONTES No, in good earnest. How sometimes nature will betray its folly, Its tenderness, and make itself a pastime To harder bosoms! Looking on the lines Of my boy's face, methoughts I did recoil Twenty-three years, and saw myself unbreech'd, In my green velvet coat, my dagger muzzled, Lest it should bite its master, and so prove, As ornaments oft do, too dangerous: How like, methought, I then was to this kernel, This squash, this gentleman. Mine honest friend, Will you take eggs for money? MAMILLIUS No, my lord, I'll fight. LEONTES You will! why, happy man be's dole! My brother, Are you so fond of your young prince as we Do seem to be of ours? POLIXENES If at home, sir, He's all my exercise, my mirth, my matter, Now my sworn friend and then mine enemy, My parasite, my soldier, statesman, all: He makes a July's day short as December, And with his varying childness cures in me Thoughts that would thick my blood. LEONTES So stands this squire Officed with me: we two will walk, my lord, And leave you to your graver steps. Hermione, How thou lovest us, show in our brother's welcome; Let what is dear in Sicily be cheap: Next to thyself and my young rover, he's Apparent to my heart. HERMIONE If you would seek us, We are yours i' the garden: shall's attend you there? LEONTES To your own bents dispose you: you'll be found, Be you beneath the sky. [Aside] I am angling now, Though you perceive me not how I give line. Go to, go to! How she holds up the neb, the bill to him! And arms her with the boldness of a wife To her allowing husband! [Exeunt POLIXENES, HERMIONE, and Attendants] Gone already! Inch-thick, knee-deep, o'er head and ears a fork'd one! Go, play, boy, play: thy mother plays, and I Play too, but so disgraced a part, whose issue Will hiss me to my grave: contempt and clamour Will be my knell. Go, play, boy, play. There have been, Or I am much deceived, cuckolds ere now; And many a man there is, even at this present, Now while I speak this, holds his wife by the arm, That little thinks she has been sluiced in's absence And his pond fish'd by his next neighbour, by Sir Smile, his neighbour: nay, there's comfort in't Whiles other men have gates and those gates open'd, As mine, against their will. Should all despair That have revolted wives, the tenth of mankind Would hang themselves. Physic for't there is none; It is a bawdy planet, that will strike Where 'tis predominant; and 'tis powerful, think it, From east, west, north and south: be it concluded, No barricado for a belly; know't; It will let in and out the enemy With bag and baggage: many thousand on's Have the disease, and feel't not. How now, boy! MAMILLIUS I am like you, they say. LEONTES Why that's some comfort. What, Camillo there? CAMILLO Ay, my good lord. LEONTES Go play, Mamillius; thou'rt an honest man. [Exit MAMILLIUS] Camillo, this great sir will yet stay longer. CAMILLO You had much ado to make his anchor hold: When you cast out, it still came home. LEONTES Didst note it? CAMILLO He would not stay at your petitions: made His business more material. LEONTES Didst perceive it? [Aside] They're here with me already, whispering, rounding 'Sicilia is a so-forth:' 'tis far gone, When I shall gust it last. How came't, Camillo, That he did stay? CAMILLO At the good queen's entreaty. LEONTES At the queen's be't: 'good' should be pertinent But, so it is, it is not. Was this taken By any understanding pate but thine? For thy conceit is soaking, will draw in More than the common blocks: not noted, is't, But of the finer natures? by some severals Of head-piece extraordinary? lower messes Perchance are to this business purblind? say. CAMILLO Business, my lord! I think most understand Bohemia stays here longer. LEONTES Ha! CAMILLO Stays here longer. LEONTES Ay, but why? CAMILLO To satisfy your highness and the entreaties Of our most gracious mistress. LEONTES Satisfy! The entreaties of your mistress! satisfy! Let that suffice. I have trusted thee, Camillo, With all the nearest things to my heart, as well My chamber-councils, wherein, priest-like, thou Hast cleansed my bosom, I from thee departed Thy penitent reform'd: but we have been Deceived in thy integrity, deceived In that which seems so. CAMILLO Be it forbid, my lord! LEONTES To bide upon't, thou art not honest, or, If thou inclinest that way, thou art a coward, Which hoxes honesty behind, restraining From course required; or else thou must be counted A servant grafted in my serious trust And therein negligent; or else a fool That seest a game play'd home, the rich stake drawn, And takest it all for jest. CAMILLO My gracious lord, I may be negligent, foolish and fearful; In every one of these no man is free, But that his negligence, his folly, fear, Among the infinite doings of the world, Sometime puts forth. In your affairs, my lord, If ever I were wilful-negligent, It was my folly; if industriously I play'd the fool, it was my negligence, Not weighing well the end; if ever fearful To do a thing, where I the issue doubted, Where of the execution did cry out Against the non-performance, 'twas a fear Which oft infects the wisest: these, my lord, Are such allow'd infirmities that honesty Is never free of. But, beseech your grace, Be plainer with me; let me know my trespass By its own visage: if I then deny it, 'Tis none of mine. LEONTES Ha' not you seen, Camillo,-- But that's past doubt, you have, or your eye-glass Is thicker than a cuckold's horn,--or heard,-- For to a vision so apparent rumour Cannot be mute,--or thought,--for cogitation Resides not in that man that does not think,-- My wife is slippery? If thou wilt confess, Or else be impudently negative, To have nor eyes nor ears nor thought, then say My wife's a hobby-horse, deserves a name As rank as any flax-wench that puts to Before her troth-plight: say't and justify't. CAMILLO I would not be a stander-by to hear My sovereign mistress clouded so, without My present vengeance taken: 'shrew my heart, You never spoke what did become you less Than this; which to reiterate were sin As deep as that, though true. LEONTES Is whispering nothing? Is leaning cheek to cheek? is meeting noses? Kissing with inside lip? stopping the career Of laughing with a sigh?--a note infallible Of breaking honesty--horsing foot on foot? Skulking in corners? wishing clocks more swift? Hours, minutes? noon, midnight? and all eyes Blind with the pin and web but theirs, theirs only, That would unseen be wicked? is this nothing? Why, then the world and all that's in't is nothing; The covering sky is nothing; Bohemia nothing; My wife is nothing; nor nothing have these nothings, If this be nothing. CAMILLO Good my lord, be cured Of this diseased opinion, and betimes; For 'tis most dangerous. LEONTES Say it be, 'tis true. CAMILLO No, no, my lord. LEONTES It is; you lie, you lie: I say thou liest, Camillo, and I hate thee, Pronounce thee a gross lout, a mindless slave, Or else a hovering temporizer, that Canst with thine eyes at once see good and evil, Inclining to them both: were my wife's liver Infected as her life, she would not live The running of one glass. CAMILLO Who does infect her? LEONTES Why, he that wears her like a medal, hanging About his neck, Bohemia: who, if I Had servants true about me, that bare eyes To see alike mine honour as their profits, Their own particular thrifts, they would do that Which should undo more doing: ay, and thou, His cupbearer,--whom I from meaner form Have benched and reared to worship, who mayst see Plainly as heaven sees earth and earth sees heaven, How I am galled,--mightst bespice a cup, To give mine enemy a lasting wink; Which draught to me were cordial. CAMILLO Sir, my lord, I could do this, and that with no rash potion, But with a lingering dram that should not work Maliciously like poison: but I cannot Believe this crack to be in my dread mistress, So sovereignly being honourable. I have loved thee,-- LEONTES Make that thy question, and go rot! Dost think I am so muddy, so unsettled, To appoint myself in this vexation, sully The purity and whiteness of my sheets, Which to preserve is sleep, which being spotted Is goads, thorns, nettles, tails of wasps, Give scandal to the blood o' the prince my son, Who I do think is mine and love as mine, Without ripe moving to't? Would I do this? Could man so blench? CAMILLO I must believe you, sir: I do; and will fetch off Bohemia for't; Provided that, when he's removed, your highness Will take again your queen as yours at first, Even for your son's sake; and thereby for sealing The injury of tongues in courts and kingdoms Known and allied to yours. LEONTES Thou dost advise me Even so as I mine own course have set down: I'll give no blemish to her honour, none. CAMILLO My lord, Go then; and with a countenance as clear As friendship wears at feasts, keep with Bohemia And with your queen. I am his cupbearer: If from me he have wholesome beverage, Account me not your servant. LEONTES This is all: Do't and thou hast the one half of my heart; Do't not, thou split'st thine own. CAMILLO I'll do't, my lord. LEONTES I will seem friendly, as thou hast advised me. [Exit] CAMILLO O miserable lady! But, for me, What case stand I in? I must be the poisoner Of good Polixenes; and my ground to do't Is the obedience to a master, one Who in rebellion with himself will have All that are his so too. To do this deed, Promotion follows. If I could find example Of thousands that had struck anointed kings And flourish'd after, I'ld not do't; but since Nor brass nor stone nor parchment bears not one, Let villany itself forswear't. I must Forsake the court: to do't, or no, is certain To me a break-neck. Happy star, reign now! Here comes Bohemia. [Re-enter POLIXENES] POLIXENES This is strange: methinks My favour here begins to warp. Not speak? Good day, Camillo. CAMILLO Hail, most royal sir! POLIXENES What is the news i' the court? CAMILLO None rare, my lord. POLIXENES The king hath on him such a countenance As he had lost some province and a region Loved as he loves himself: even now I met him With customary compliment; when he, Wafting his eyes to the contrary and falling A lip of much contempt, speeds from me and So leaves me to consider what is breeding That changeth thus his manners. CAMILLO I dare not know, my lord. POLIXENES How! dare not! do not. Do you know, and dare not? Be intelligent to me: 'tis thereabouts; For, to yourself, what you do know, you must. And cannot say, you dare not. Good Camillo, Your changed complexions are to me a mirror Which shows me mine changed too; for I must be A party in this alteration, finding Myself thus alter'd with 't. CAMILLO There is a sickness Which puts some of us in distemper, but I cannot name the disease; and it is caught Of you that yet are well. POLIXENES How! caught of me! Make me not sighted like the basilisk: I have look'd on thousands, who have sped the better By my regard, but kill'd none so. Camillo,-- As you are certainly a gentleman, thereto Clerk-like experienced, which no less adorns Our gentry than our parents' noble names, In whose success we are gentle,--I beseech you, If you know aught which does behove my knowledge Thereof to be inform'd, imprison't not In ignorant concealment. CAMILLO I may not answer. POLIXENES A sickness caught of me, and yet I well! I must be answer'd. Dost thou hear, Camillo, I conjure thee, by all the parts of man Which honour does acknowledge, whereof the least Is not this suit of mine, that thou declare What incidency thou dost guess of harm Is creeping toward me; how far off, how near; Which way to be prevented, if to be; If not, how best to bear it. CAMILLO Sir, I will tell you; Since I am charged in honour and by him That I think honourable: therefore mark my counsel, Which must be even as swiftly follow'd as I mean to utter it, or both yourself and me Cry lost, and so good night! POLIXENES On, good Camillo. CAMILLO I am appointed him to murder you. POLIXENES By whom, Camillo? CAMILLO By the king. POLIXENES For what? CAMILLO He thinks, nay, with all confidence he swears, As he had seen't or been an instrument To vice you to't, that you have touch'd his queen Forbiddenly. POLIXENES O, then my best blood turn To an infected jelly and my name Be yoked with his that did betray the Best! Turn then my freshest reputation to A savour that may strike the dullest nostril Where I arrive, and my approach be shunn'd, Nay, hated too, worse than the great'st infection That e'er was heard or read! CAMILLO Swear his thought over By each particular star in heaven and By all their influences, you may as well Forbid the sea for to obey the moon As or by oath remove or counsel shake The fabric of his folly, whose foundation Is piled upon his faith and will continue The standing of his body. POLIXENES How should this grow? CAMILLO I know not: but I am sure 'tis safer to Avoid what's grown than question how 'tis born. If therefore you dare trust my honesty, That lies enclosed in this trunk which you Shall bear along impawn'd, away to-night! Your followers I will whisper to the business, And will by twos and threes at several posterns Clear them o' the city. For myself, I'll put My fortunes to your service, which are here By this discovery lost. Be not uncertain; For, by the honour of my parents, I Have utter'd truth: which if you seek to prove, I dare not stand by; nor shall you be safer Than one condemn'd by the king's own mouth, thereon His execution sworn. POLIXENES I do believe thee: I saw his heart in 's face. Give me thy hand: Be pilot to me and thy places shall Still neighbour mine. My ships are ready and My people did expect my hence departure Two days ago. This jealousy Is for a precious creature: as she's rare, Must it be great, and as his person's mighty, Must it be violent, and as he does conceive He is dishonour'd by a man which ever Profess'd to him, why, his revenges must In that be made more bitter. Fear o'ershades me: Good expedition be my friend, and comfort The gracious queen, part of his theme, but nothing Of his ill-ta'en suspicion! Come, Camillo; I will respect thee as a father if Thou bear'st my life off hence: let us avoid. CAMILLO It is in mine authority to command The keys of all the posterns: please your highness To take the urgent hour. Come, sir, away. [Exeunt] THE WINTER'S TALE ACT II SCENE I A room in LEONTES' palace. [Enter HERMIONE, MAMILLIUS, and Ladies] HERMIONE Take the boy to you: he so troubles me, 'Tis past enduring. First Lady Come, my gracious lord, Shall I be your playfellow? MAMILLIUS No, I'll none of you. First Lady Why, my sweet lord? MAMILLIUS You'll kiss me hard and speak to me as if I were a baby still. I love you better. Second Lady And why so, my lord? MAMILLIUS Not for because Your brows are blacker; yet black brows, they say, Become some women best, so that there be not Too much hair there, but in a semicircle Or a half-moon made with a pen. Second Lady Who taught you this? MAMILLIUS I learnt it out of women's faces. Pray now What colour are your eyebrows? First Lady Blue, my lord. MAMILLIUS Nay, that's a mock: I have seen a lady's nose That has been blue, but not her eyebrows. First Lady Hark ye; The queen your mother rounds apace: we shall Present our services to a fine new prince One of these days; and then you'ld wanton with us, If we would have you. Second Lady She is spread of late Into a goodly bulk: good time encounter her! HERMIONE What wisdom stirs amongst you? Come, sir, now I am for you again: pray you, sit by us, And tell 's a tale. MAMILLIUS Merry or sad shall't be? HERMIONE As merry as you will. MAMILLIUS A sad tale's best for winter: I have one Of sprites and goblins. HERMIONE Let's have that, good sir. Come on, sit down: come on, and do your best To fright me with your sprites; you're powerful at it. MAMILLIUS There was a man-- HERMIONE Nay, come, sit down; then on. MAMILLIUS Dwelt by a churchyard: I will tell it softly; Yond crickets shall not hear it. HERMIONE Come on, then, And give't me in mine ear. [Enter LEONTES, with ANTIGONUS, Lords and others] LEONTES Was he met there? his train? Camillo with him? First Lord Behind the tuft of pines I met them; never Saw I men scour so on their way: I eyed them Even to their ships. LEONTES How blest am I In my just censure, in my true opinion! Alack, for lesser knowledge! how accursed In being so blest! There may be in the cup A spider steep'd, and one may drink, depart, And yet partake no venom, for his knowledge Is not infected: but if one present The abhorr'd ingredient to his eye, make known How he hath drunk, he cracks his gorge, his sides, With violent hefts. I have drunk, and seen the spider. Camillo was his help in this, his pander: There is a plot against my life, my crown; All's true that is mistrusted: that false villain Whom I employ'd was pre-employ'd by him: He has discover'd my design, and I Remain a pinch'd thing; yea, a very trick For them to play at will. How came the posterns So easily open? First Lord By his great authority; Which often hath no less prevail'd than so On your command. LEONTES I know't too well. Give me the boy: I am glad you did not nurse him: Though he does bear some signs of me, yet you Have too much blood in him. HERMIONE What is this? sport? LEONTES Bear the boy hence; he shall not come about her; Away with him! and let her sport herself With that she's big with; for 'tis Polixenes Has made thee swell thus. HERMIONE But I'ld say he had not, And I'll be sworn you would believe my saying, Howe'er you lean to the nayward. LEONTES You, my lords, Look on her, mark her well; be but about To say 'she is a goodly lady,' and The justice of your bearts will thereto add 'Tis pity she's not honest, honourable:' Praise her but for this her without-door form, Which on my faith deserves high speech, and straight The shrug, the hum or ha, these petty brands That calumny doth use--O, I am out-- That mercy does, for calumny will sear Virtue itself: these shrugs, these hums and ha's, When you have said 'she's goodly,' come between Ere you can say 'she's honest:' but be 't known, From him that has most cause to grieve it should be, She's an adulteress. HERMIONE Should a villain say so, The most replenish'd villain in the world, He were as much more villain: you, my lord, Do but mistake. LEONTES You have mistook, my lady, Polixenes for Leontes: O thou thing! Which I'll not call a creature of thy place, Lest barbarism, making me the precedent, Should a like language use to all degrees And mannerly distinguishment leave out Betwixt the prince and beggar: I have said She's an adulteress; I have said with whom: More, she's a traitor and Camillo is A federary with her, and one that knows What she should shame to know herself But with her most vile principal, that she's A bed-swerver, even as bad as those That vulgars give bold'st titles, ay, and privy To this their late escape. HERMIONE No, by my life. Privy to none of this. How will this grieve you, When you shall come to clearer knowledge, that You thus have publish'd me! Gentle my lord, You scarce can right me throughly then to say You did mistake. LEONTES No; if I mistake In those foundations which I build upon, The centre is not big enough to bear A school-boy's top. Away with her! to prison! He who shall speak for her is afar off guilty But that he speaks. HERMIONE There's some ill planet reigns: I must be patient till the heavens look With an aspect more favourable. Good my lords, I am not prone to weeping, as our sex Commonly are; the want of which vain dew Perchance shall dry your pities: but I have That honourable grief lodged here which burns Worse than tears drown: beseech you all, my lords, With thoughts so qualified as your charities Shall best instruct you, measure me; and so The king's will be perform'd! LEONTES Shall I be heard? HERMIONE Who is't that goes with me? Beseech your highness, My women may be with me; for you see My plight requires it. Do not weep, good fools; There is no cause: when you shall know your mistress Has deserved prison, then abound in tears As I come out: this action I now go on Is for my better grace. Adieu, my lord: I never wish'd to see you sorry; now I trust I shall. My women, come; you have leave. LEONTES Go, do our bidding; hence! [Exit HERMIONE, guarded; with Ladies] First Lord Beseech your highness, call the queen again. ANTIGONUS Be certain what you do, sir, lest your justice Prove violence; in the which three great ones suffer, Yourself, your queen, your son. First Lord For her, my lord, I dare my life lay down and will do't, sir, Please you to accept it, that the queen is spotless I' the eyes of heaven and to you; I mean, In this which you accuse her. ANTIGONUS If it prove She's otherwise, I'll keep my stables where I lodge my wife; I'll go in couples with her; Than when I feel and see her no farther trust her; For every inch of woman in the world, Ay, every dram of woman's flesh is false, If she be. LEONTES Hold your peaces. First Lord Good my lord,-- ANTIGONUS It is for you we speak, not for ourselves: You are abused and by some putter-on That will be damn'd for't; would I knew the villain, I would land-damn him. Be she honour-flaw'd, I have three daughters; the eldest is eleven The second and the third, nine, and some five; If this prove true, they'll pay for't: by mine honour, I'll geld 'em all; fourteen they shall not see, To bring false generations: they are co-heirs; And I had rather glib myself than they Should not produce fair issue. LEONTES Cease; no more. You smell this business with a sense as cold As is a dead man's nose: but I do see't and feel't As you feel doing thus; and see withal The instruments that feel. ANTIGONUS If it be so, We need no grave to bury honesty: There's not a grain of it the face to sweeten Of the whole dungy earth. LEONTES What! lack I credit? First Lord I had rather you did lack than I, my lord, Upon this ground; and more it would content me To have her honour true than your suspicion, Be blamed for't how you might. LEONTES Why, what need we Commune with you of this, but rather follow Our forceful instigation? Our prerogative Calls not your counsels, but our natural goodness Imparts this; which if you, or stupefied Or seeming so in skill, cannot or will not Relish a truth like us, inform yourselves We need no more of your advice: the matter, The loss, the gain, the ordering on't, is all Properly ours. ANTIGONUS And I wish, my liege, You had only in your silent judgment tried it, Without more overture. LEONTES How could that be? Either thou art most ignorant by age, Or thou wert born a fool. Camillo's flight, Added to their familiarity, Which was as gross as ever touch'd conjecture, That lack'd sight only, nought for approbation But only seeing, all other circumstances Made up to the deed, doth push on this proceeding: Yet, for a greater confirmation, For in an act of this importance 'twere Most piteous to be wild, I have dispatch'd in post To sacred Delphos, to Apollo's temple, Cleomenes and Dion, whom you know Of stuff'd sufficiency: now from the oracle They will bring all; whose spiritual counsel had, Shall stop or spur me. Have I done well? First Lord Well done, my lord. LEONTES Though I am satisfied and need no more Than what I know, yet shall the oracle Give rest to the minds of others, such as he Whose ignorant credulity will not Come up to the truth. So have we thought it good From our free person she should be confined, Lest that the treachery of the two fled hence Be left her to perform. Come, follow us; We are to speak in public; for this business Will raise us all. ANTIGONUS [Aside] To laughter, as I take it, If the good truth were known. [Exeunt] THE WINTER'S TALE ACT II SCENE II A prison. [Enter PAULINA, a Gentleman, and Attendants] PAULINA The keeper of the prison, call to him; let him have knowledge who I am. [Exit Gentleman] Good lady, No court in Europe is too good for thee; What dost thou then in prison? [Re-enter Gentleman, with the Gaoler] Now, good sir, You know me, do you not? Gaoler For a worthy lady And one whom much I honour. PAULINA Pray you then, Conduct me to the queen. Gaoler I may not, madam: To the contrary I have express commandment. PAULINA Here's ado, To lock up honesty and honour from The access of gentle visitors! Is't lawful, pray you, To see her women? any of them? Emilia? Gaoler So please you, madam, To put apart these your attendants, I Shall bring Emilia forth. PAULINA I pray now, call her. Withdraw yourselves. [Exeunt Gentleman and Attendants] Gaoler And, madam, I must be present at your conference. PAULINA Well, be't so, prithee. [Exit Gaoler] Here's such ado to make no stain a stain As passes colouring. [Re-enter Gaoler, with EMILIA] Dear gentlewoman, How fares our gracious lady? EMILIA As well as one so great and so forlorn May hold together: on her frights and griefs, Which never tender lady hath born greater, She is something before her time deliver'd. PAULINA A boy? EMILIA A daughter, and a goodly babe, Lusty and like to live: the queen receives Much comfort in't; says 'My poor prisoner, I am innocent as you.' PAULINA I dare be sworn These dangerous unsafe lunes i' the king, beshrew them! He must be told on't, and he shall: the office Becomes a woman best; I'll take't upon me: If I prove honey-mouth'd let my tongue blister And never to my red-look'd anger be The trumpet any more. Pray you, Emilia, Commend my best obedience to the queen: If she dares trust me with her little babe, I'll show't the king and undertake to be Her advocate to the loud'st. We do not know How he may soften at the sight o' the child: The silence often of pure innocence Persuades when speaking fails. EMILIA Most worthy madam, Your honour and your goodness is so evident That your free undertaking cannot miss A thriving issue: there is no lady living So meet for this great errand. Please your ladyship To visit the next room, I'll presently Acquaint the queen of your most noble offer; Who but to-day hammer'd of this design, But durst not tempt a minister of honour, Lest she should be denied. PAULINA Tell her, Emilia. I'll use that tongue I have: if wit flow from't As boldness from my bosom, let 't not be doubted I shall do good. EMILIA Now be you blest for it! I'll to the queen: please you, come something nearer. Gaoler Madam, if't please the queen to send the babe, I know not what I shall incur to pass it, Having no warrant. PAULINA You need not fear it, sir: This child was prisoner to the womb and is By law and process of great nature thence Freed and enfranchised, not a party to The anger of the king nor guilty of, If any be, the trespass of the queen. Gaoler I do believe it. PAULINA Do not you fear: upon mine honour, I will stand betwixt you and danger. [Exeunt] THE WINTER'S TALE ACT II SCENE III A room in LEONTES' palace. [Enter LEONTES, ANTIGONUS, Lords, and Servants] LEONTES Nor night nor day no rest: it is but weakness To bear the matter thus; mere weakness. If The cause were not in being,--part o' the cause, She the adulteress; for the harlot king Is quite beyond mine arm, out of the blank And level of my brain, plot-proof; but she I can hook to me: say that she were gone, Given to the fire, a moiety of my rest Might come to me again. Who's there? First Servant My lord? LEONTES How does the boy? First Servant He took good rest to-night; 'Tis hoped his sickness is discharged. LEONTES To see his nobleness! Conceiving the dishonour of his mother, He straight declined, droop'd, took it deeply, Fasten'd and fix'd the shame on't in himself, Threw off his spirit, his appetite, his sleep, And downright languish'd. Leave me solely: go, See how he fares. [Exit Servant] Fie, fie! no thought of him: The thought of my revenges that way Recoil upon me: in himself too mighty, And in his parties, his alliance; let him be Until a time may serve: for present vengeance, Take it on her. Camillo and Polixenes Laugh at me, make their pastime at my sorrow: They should not laugh if I could reach them, nor Shall she within my power. [Enter PAULINA, with a child] First Lord You must not enter. PAULINA Nay, rather, good my lords, be second to me: Fear you his tyrannous passion more, alas, Than the queen's life? a gracious innocent soul, More free than he is jealous. ANTIGONUS That's enough. Second Servant Madam, he hath not slept tonight; commanded None should come at him. PAULINA Not so hot, good sir: I come to bring him sleep. 'Tis such as you, That creep like shadows by him and do sigh At each his needless heavings, such as you Nourish the cause of his awaking: I Do come with words as medicinal as true, Honest as either, to purge him of that humour That presses him from sleep. LEONTES What noise there, ho? PAULINA No noise, my lord; but needful conference About some gossips for your highness. LEONTES How! Away with that audacious lady! Antigonus, I charged thee that she should not come about me: I knew she would. ANTIGONUS I told her so, my lord, On your displeasure's peril and on mine, She should not visit you. LEONTES What, canst not rule her? PAULINA From all dishonesty he can: in this, Unless he take the course that you have done, Commit me for committing honour, trust it, He shall not rule me. ANTIGONUS La you now, you hear: When she will take the rein I let her run; But she'll not stumble. PAULINA Good my liege, I come; And, I beseech you, hear me, who profess Myself your loyal servant, your physician, Your most obedient counsellor, yet that dare Less appear so in comforting your evils, Than such as most seem yours: I say, I come From your good queen. LEONTES Good queen! PAULINA Good queen, my lord, Good queen; I say good queen; And would by combat make her good, so were I A man, the worst about you. LEONTES Force her hence. PAULINA Let him that makes but trifles of his eyes First hand me: on mine own accord I'll off; But first I'll do my errand. The good queen, For she is good, hath brought you forth a daughter; Here 'tis; commends it to your blessing. [Laying down the child] LEONTES Out! A mankind witch! Hence with her, out o' door: A most intelligencing bawd! PAULINA Not so: I am as ignorant in that as you In so entitling me, and no less honest Than you are mad; which is enough, I'll warrant, As this world goes, to pass for honest. LEONTES Traitors! Will you not push her out? Give her the bastard. Thou dotard! thou art woman-tired, unroosted By thy dame Partlet here. Take up the bastard; Take't up, I say; give't to thy crone. PAULINA For ever Unvenerable be thy hands, if thou Takest up the princess by that forced baseness Which he has put upon't! LEONTES He dreads his wife. PAULINA So I would you did; then 'twere past all doubt You'ld call your children yours. LEONTES A nest of traitors! ANTIGONUS I am none, by this good light. PAULINA Nor I, nor any But one that's here, and that's himself, for he The sacred honour of himself, his queen's, His hopeful son's, his babe's, betrays to slander, Whose sting is sharper than the sword's; and will not-- For, as the case now stands, it is a curse He cannot be compell'd to't--once remove The root of his opinion, which is rotten As ever oak or stone was sound. LEONTES A callat Of boundless tongue, who late hath beat her husband And now baits me! This brat is none of mine; It is the issue of Polixenes: Hence with it, and together with the dam Commit them to the fire! PAULINA It is yours; And, might we lay the old proverb to your charge, So like you, 'tis the worse. Behold, my lords, Although the print be little, the whole matter And copy of the father, eye, nose, lip, The trick of's frown, his forehead, nay, the valley, The pretty dimples of his chin and cheek, His smiles, The very mould and frame of hand, nail, finger: And thou, good goddess Nature, which hast made it So like to him that got it, if thou hast The ordering of the mind too, 'mongst all colours No yellow in't, lest she suspect, as he does, Her children not her husband's! LEONTES A gross hag And, lozel, thou art worthy to be hang'd, That wilt not stay her tongue. ANTIGONUS Hang all the husbands That cannot do that feat, you'll leave yourself Hardly one subject. LEONTES Once more, take her hence. PAULINA A most unworthy and unnatural lord Can do no more. LEONTES I'll ha' thee burnt. PAULINA I care not: It is an heretic that makes the fire, Not she which burns in't. I'll not call you tyrant; But this most cruel usage of your queen, Not able to produce more accusation Than your own weak-hinged fancy, something savours Of tyranny and will ignoble make you, Yea, scandalous to the world. LEONTES On your allegiance, Out of the chamber with her! Were I a tyrant, Where were her life? she durst not call me so, If she did know me one. Away with her! PAULINA I pray you, do not push me; I'll be gone. Look to your babe, my lord; 'tis yours: Jove send her A better guiding spirit! What needs these hands? You, that are thus so tender o'er his follies, Will never do him good, not one of you. So, so: farewell; we are gone. [Exit] LEONTES Thou, traitor, hast set on thy wife to this. My child? away with't! Even thou, that hast A heart so tender o'er it, take it hence And see it instantly consumed with fire; Even thou and none but thou. Take it up straight: Within this hour bring me word 'tis done, And by good testimony, or I'll seize thy life, With what thou else call'st thine. If thou refuse And wilt encounter with my wrath, say so; The bastard brains with these my proper hands Shall I dash out. Go, take it to the fire; For thou set'st on thy wife. ANTIGONUS I did not, sir: These lords, my noble fellows, if they please, Can clear me in't. Lords We can: my royal liege, He is not guilty of her coming hither. LEONTES You're liars all. First Lord Beseech your highness, give us better credit: We have always truly served you, and beseech you So to esteem of us, and on our knees we beg, As recompense of our dear services Past and to come, that you do change this purpose, Which being so horrible, so bloody, must Lead on to some foul issue: we all kneel. LEONTES I am a feather for each wind that blows: Shall I live on to see this bastard kneel And call me father? better burn it now Than curse it then. But be it; let it live. It shall not neither. You, sir, come you hither; You that have been so tenderly officious With Lady Margery, your midwife there, To save this bastard's life,--for 'tis a bastard, So sure as this beard's grey, --what will you adventure To save this brat's life? ANTIGONUS Any thing, my lord, That my ability may undergo And nobleness impose: at least thus much: I'll pawn the little blood which I have left To save the innocent: any thing possible. LEONTES It shall be possible. Swear by this sword Thou wilt perform my bidding. ANTIGONUS I will, my lord. LEONTES Mark and perform it, see'st thou! for the fail Of any point in't shall not only be Death to thyself but to thy lewd-tongued wife, Whom for this time we pardon. We enjoin thee, As thou art liege-man to us, that thou carry This female bastard hence and that thou bear it To some remote and desert place quite out Of our dominions, and that there thou leave it, Without more mercy, to its own protection And favour of the climate. As by strange fortune It came to us, I do in justice charge thee, On thy soul's peril and thy body's torture, That thou commend it strangely to some place Where chance may nurse or end it. Take it up. ANTIGONUS I swear to do this, though a present death Had been more merciful. Come on, poor babe: Some powerful spirit instruct the kites and ravens To be thy nurses! Wolves and bears, they say Casting their savageness aside have done Like offices of pity. Sir, be prosperous In more than this deed does require! And blessing Against this cruelty fight on thy side, Poor thing, condemn'd to loss! [Exit with the child] LEONTES No, I'll not rear Another's issue. [Enter a Servant] Servant Please your highness, posts From those you sent to the oracle are come An hour since: Cleomenes and Dion, Being well arrived from Delphos, are both landed, Hasting to the court. First Lord So please you, sir, their speed Hath been beyond account. LEONTES Twenty-three days They have been absent: 'tis good speed; foretells The great Apollo suddenly will have The truth of this appear. Prepare you, lords; Summon a session, that we may arraign Our most disloyal lady, for, as she hath Been publicly accused, so shall she have A just and open trial. While she lives My heart will be a burthen to me. Leave me, And think upon my bidding. [Exeunt] THE WINTER'S TALE ACT III SCENE I A sea-port in Sicilia. [Enter CLEOMENES and DION] CLEOMENES The climate's delicate, the air most sweet, Fertile the isle, the temple much surpassing The common praise it bears. DION I shall report, For most it caught me, the celestial habits, Methinks I so should term them, and the reverence Of the grave wearers. O, the sacrifice! How ceremonious, solemn and unearthly It was i' the offering! CLEOMENES But of all, the burst And the ear-deafening voice o' the oracle, Kin to Jove's thunder, so surprised my sense. That I was nothing. DION If the event o' the journey Prove as successful to the queen,--O be't so!-- As it hath been to us rare, pleasant, speedy, The time is worth the use on't. CLEOMENES Great Apollo Turn all to the best! These proclamations, So forcing faults upon Hermione, I little like. DION The violent carriage of it Will clear or end the business: when the oracle, Thus by Apollo's great divine seal'd up, Shall the contents discover, something rare Even then will rush to knowledge. Go: fresh horses! And gracious be the issue! [Exeunt] THE WINTER'S TALE ACT III SCENE II A court of Justice. [Enter LEONTES, Lords, and Officers] LEONTES This sessions, to our great grief we pronounce, Even pushes 'gainst our heart: the party tried The daughter of a king, our wife, and one Of us too much beloved. Let us be clear'd Of being tyrannous, since we so openly Proceed in justice, which shall have due course, Even to the guilt or the purgation. Produce the prisoner. Officer It is his highness' pleasure that the queen Appear in person here in court. Silence! [Enter HERMIONE guarded; PAULINA and Ladies attending] LEONTES Read the indictment. Officer [Reads] Hermione, queen to the worthy Leontes, king of Sicilia, thou art here accused and arraigned of high treason, in committing adultery with Polixenes, king of Bohemia, and conspiring with Camillo to take away the life of our sovereign lord the king, thy royal husband: the pretence whereof being by circumstances partly laid open, thou, Hermione, contrary to the faith and allegiance of a true subject, didst counsel and aid them, for their better safety, to fly away by night. HERMIONE Since what I am to say must be but that Which contradicts my accusation and The testimony on my part no other But what comes from myself, it shall scarce boot me To say 'not guilty:' mine integrity Being counted falsehood, shall, as I express it, Be so received. But thus: if powers divine Behold our human actions, as they do, I doubt not then but innocence shall make False accusation blush and tyranny Tremble at patience. You, my lord, best know, Who least will seem to do so, my past life Hath been as continent, as chaste, as true, As I am now unhappy; which is more Than history can pattern, though devised And play'd to take spectators. For behold me A fellow of the royal bed, which owe A moiety of the throne a great king's daughter, The mother to a hopeful prince, here standing To prate and talk for life and honour 'fore Who please to come and hear. For life, I prize it As I weigh grief, which I would spare: for honour, 'Tis a derivative from me to mine, And only that I stand for. I appeal To your own conscience, sir, before Polixenes Came to your court, how I was in your grace, How merited to be so; since he came, With what encounter so uncurrent I Have strain'd to appear thus: if one jot beyond The bound of honour, or in act or will That way inclining, harden'd be the hearts Of all that hear me, and my near'st of kin Cry fie upon my grave! LEONTES I ne'er heard yet That any of these bolder vices wanted Less impudence to gainsay what they did Than to perform it first. HERMIONE That's true enough; Through 'tis a saying, sir, not due to me. LEONTES You will not own it. HERMIONE More than mistress of Which comes to me in name of fault, I must not At all acknowledge. For Polixenes, With whom I am accused, I do confess I loved him as in honour he required, With such a kind of love as might become A lady like me, with a love even such, So and no other, as yourself commanded: Which not to have done I think had been in me Both disobedience and ingratitude To you and toward your friend, whose love had spoke, Even since it could speak, from an infant, freely That it was yours. Now, for conspiracy, I know not how it tastes; though it be dish'd For me to try how: all I know of it Is that Camillo was an honest man; And why he left your court, the gods themselves, Wotting no more than I, are ignorant. LEONTES You knew of his departure, as you know What you have underta'en to do in's absence. HERMIONE Sir, You speak a language that I understand not: My life stands in the level of your dreams, Which I'll lay down. LEONTES Your actions are my dreams; You had a bastard by Polixenes, And I but dream'd it. As you were past all shame,-- Those of your fact are so--so past all truth: Which to deny concerns more than avails; for as Thy brat hath been cast out, like to itself, No father owning it,--which is, indeed, More criminal in thee than it,--so thou Shalt feel our justice, in whose easiest passage Look for no less than death. HERMIONE Sir, spare your threats: The bug which you would fright me with I seek. To me can life be no commodity: The crown and comfort of my life, your favour, I do give lost; for I do feel it gone, But know not how it went. My second joy And first-fruits of my body, from his presence I am barr'd, like one infectious. My third comfort Starr'd most unluckily, is from my breast, The innocent milk in its most innocent mouth, Haled out to murder: myself on every post Proclaimed a strumpet: with immodest hatred The child-bed privilege denied, which 'longs To women of all fashion; lastly, hurried Here to this place, i' the open air, before I have got strength of limit. Now, my liege, Tell me what blessings I have here alive, That I should fear to die? Therefore proceed. But yet hear this: mistake me not; no life, I prize it not a straw, but for mine honour, Which I would free, if I shall be condemn'd Upon surmises, all proofs sleeping else But what your jealousies awake, I tell you 'Tis rigor and not law. Your honours all, I do refer me to the oracle: Apollo be my judge! First Lord This your request Is altogether just: therefore bring forth, And in Apollos name, his oracle. [Exeunt certain Officers] HERMIONE The Emperor of Russia was my father: O that he were alive, and here beholding His daughter's trial! that he did but see The flatness of my misery, yet with eyes Of pity, not revenge! [Re-enter Officers, with CLEOMENES and DION] Officer You here shall swear upon this sword of justice, That you, Cleomenes and Dion, have Been both at Delphos, and from thence have brought The seal'd-up oracle, by the hand deliver'd Of great Apollo's priest; and that, since then, You have not dared to break the holy seal Nor read the secrets in't. CLEOMENES | | All this we swear. DION | LEONTES Break up the seals and read. Officer [Reads] Hermione is chaste; Polixenes blameless; Camillo a true subject; Leontes a jealous tyrant; his innocent babe truly begotten; and the king shall live without an heir, if that which is lost be not found. Lords Now blessed be the great Apollo! HERMIONE Praised! LEONTES Hast thou read truth? Officer Ay, my lord; even so As it is here set down. LEONTES There is no truth at all i' the oracle: The sessions shall proceed: this is mere falsehood. [Enter Servant] Servant My lord the king, the king! LEONTES What is the business? Servant O sir, I shall be hated to report it! The prince your son, with mere conceit and fear Of the queen's speed, is gone. LEONTES How! gone! Servant Is dead. LEONTES Apollo's angry; and the heavens themselves Do strike at my injustice. [HERMIONE swoons] How now there! PAULINA This news is mortal to the queen: look down And see what death is doing. LEONTES Take her hence: Her heart is but o'ercharged; she will recover: I have too much believed mine own suspicion: Beseech you, tenderly apply to her Some remedies for life. [Exeunt PAULINA and Ladies, with HERMIONE] Apollo, pardon My great profaneness 'gainst thine oracle! I'll reconcile me to Polixenes, New woo my queen, recall the good Camillo, Whom I proclaim a man of truth, of mercy; For, being transported by my jealousies To bloody thoughts and to revenge, I chose Camillo for the minister to poison My friend Polixenes: which had been done, But that the good mind of Camillo tardied My swift command, though I with death and with Reward did threaten and encourage him, Not doing 't and being done: he, most humane And fill'd with honour, to my kingly guest Unclasp'd my practise, quit his fortunes here, Which you knew great, and to the hazard Of all encertainties himself commended, No richer than his honour: how he glisters Thorough my rust! and how his pity Does my deeds make the blacker! [Re-enter PAULINA] PAULINA Woe the while! O, cut my lace, lest my heart, cracking it, Break too. First Lord What fit is this, good lady? PAULINA What studied torments, tyrant, hast for me? What wheels? racks? fires? what flaying? boiling? In leads or oils? what old or newer torture Must I receive, whose every word deserves To taste of thy most worst? Thy tyranny Together working with thy jealousies, Fancies too weak for boys, too green and idle For girls of nine, O, think what they have done And then run mad indeed, stark mad! for all Thy by-gone fooleries were but spices of it. That thou betray'dst Polixenes,'twas nothing; That did but show thee, of a fool, inconstant And damnable ingrateful: nor was't much, Thou wouldst have poison'd good Camillo's honour, To have him kill a king: poor trespasses, More monstrous standing by: whereof I reckon The casting forth to crows thy baby-daughter To be or none or little; though a devil Would have shed water out of fire ere done't: Nor is't directly laid to thee, the death Of the young prince, whose honourable thoughts, Thoughts high for one so tender, cleft the heart That could conceive a gross and foolish sire Blemish'd his gracious dam: this is not, no, Laid to thy answer: but the last,--O lords, When I have said, cry 'woe!' the queen, the queen, The sweet'st, dear'st creature's dead, and vengeance for't Not dropp'd down yet. First Lord The higher powers forbid! PAULINA I say she's dead; I'll swear't. If word nor oath Prevail not, go and see: if you can bring Tincture or lustre in her lip, her eye, Heat outwardly or breath within, I'll serve you As I would do the gods. But, O thou tyrant! Do not repent these things, for they are heavier Than all thy woes can stir; therefore betake thee To nothing but despair. A thousand knees Ten thousand years together, naked, fasting, Upon a barren mountain and still winter In storm perpetual, could not move the gods To look that way thou wert. LEONTES Go on, go on Thou canst not speak too much; I have deserved All tongues to talk their bitterest. First Lord Say no more: Howe'er the business goes, you have made fault I' the boldness of your speech. PAULINA I am sorry for't: All faults I make, when I shall come to know them, I do repent. Alas! I have show'd too much The rashness of a woman: he is touch'd To the noble heart. What's gone and what's past help Should be past grief: do not receive affliction At my petition; I beseech you, rather Let me be punish'd, that have minded you Of what you should forget. Now, good my liege Sir, royal sir, forgive a foolish woman: The love I bore your queen--lo, fool again!-- I'll speak of her no more, nor of your children; I'll not remember you of my own lord, Who is lost too: take your patience to you, And I'll say nothing. LEONTES Thou didst speak but well When most the truth; which I receive much better Than to be pitied of thee. Prithee, bring me To the dead bodies of my queen and son: One grave shall be for both: upon them shall The causes of their death appear, unto Our shame perpetual. Once a day I'll visit The chapel where they lie, and tears shed there Shall be my recreation: so long as nature Will bear up with this exercise, so long I daily vow to use it. Come and lead me Unto these sorrows. [Exeunt] THE WINTER'S TALE ACT III SCENE III Bohemia. A desert country near the sea. [Enter ANTIGONUS with a Child, and a Mariner] ANTIGONUS Thou art perfect then, our ship hath touch'd upon The deserts of Bohemia? Mariner Ay, my lord: and fear We have landed in ill time: the skies look grimly And threaten present blusters. In my conscience, The heavens with that we have in hand are angry And frown upon 's. ANTIGONUS Their sacred wills be done! Go, get aboard; Look to thy bark: I'll not be long before I call upon thee. Mariner Make your best haste, and go not Too far i' the land: 'tis like to be loud weather; Besides, this place is famous for the creatures Of prey that keep upon't. ANTIGONUS Go thou away: I'll follow instantly. Mariner I am glad at heart To be so rid o' the business. [Exit] ANTIGONUS Come, poor babe: I have heard, but not believed, the spirits o' the dead May walk again: if such thing be, thy mother Appear'd to me last night, for ne'er was dream So like a waking. To me comes a creature, Sometimes her head on one side, some another; I never saw a vessel of like sorrow, So fill'd and so becoming: in pure white robes, Like very sanctity, she did approach My cabin where I lay; thrice bow'd before me, And gasping to begin some speech, her eyes Became two spouts: the fury spent, anon Did this break-from her: 'Good Antigonus, Since fate, against thy better disposition, Hath made thy person for the thrower-out Of my poor babe, according to thine oath, Places remote enough are in Bohemia, There weep and leave it crying; and, for the babe Is counted lost for ever, Perdita, I prithee, call't. For this ungentle business Put on thee by my lord, thou ne'er shalt see Thy wife Paulina more.' And so, with shrieks She melted into air. Affrighted much, I did in time collect myself and thought This was so and no slumber. Dreams are toys: Yet for this once, yea, superstitiously, I will be squared by this. I do believe Hermione hath suffer'd death, and that Apollo would, this being indeed the issue Of King Polixenes, it should here be laid, Either for life or death, upon the earth Of its right father. Blossom, speed thee well! There lie, and there thy character: there these; Which may, if fortune please, both breed thee, pretty, And still rest thine. The storm begins; poor wretch, That for thy mother's fault art thus exposed To loss and what may follow! Weep I cannot, But my heart bleeds; and most accursed am I To be by oath enjoin'd to this. Farewell! The day frowns more and more: thou'rt like to have A lullaby too rough: I never saw The heavens so dim by day. A savage clamour! Well may I get aboard! This is the chase: I am gone for ever. [Exit, pursued by a bear] [Enter a Shepherd] Shepherd I would there were no age between sixteen and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest; for there is nothing in the between but getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting--Hark you now! Would any but these boiled brains of nineteen and two-and-twenty hunt this weather? They have scared away two of my best sheep, which I fear the wolf will sooner find than the master: if any where I have them, 'tis by the seaside, browsing of ivy. Good luck, an't be thy will what have we here! Mercy on 's, a barne a very pretty barne! A boy or a child, I wonder? A pretty one; a very pretty one: sure, some 'scape: though I am not bookish, yet I can read waiting-gentlewoman in the 'scape. This has been some stair-work, some trunk-work, some behind-door-work: they were warmer that got this than the poor thing is here. I'll take it up for pity: yet I'll tarry till my son come; he hallooed but even now. Whoa, ho, hoa! [Enter Clown] Clown Hilloa, loa! Shepherd What, art so near? If thou'lt see a thing to talk on when thou art dead and rotten, come hither. What ailest thou, man? Clown I have seen two such sights, by sea and by land! but I am not to say it is a sea, for it is now the sky: betwixt the firmament and it you cannot thrust a bodkin's point. Shepherd Why, boy, how is it? Clown I would you did but see how it chafes, how it rages, how it takes up the shore! but that's not the point. O, the most piteous cry of the poor souls! sometimes to see 'em, and not to see 'em; now the ship boring the moon with her main-mast, and anon swallowed with yest and froth, as you'ld thrust a cork into a hogshead. And then for the land-service, to see how the bear tore out his shoulder-bone; how he cried to me for help and said his name was Antigonus, a nobleman. But to make an end of the ship, to see how the sea flap-dragoned it: but, first, how the poor souls roared, and the sea mocked them; and how the poor gentleman roared and the bear mocked him, both roaring louder than the sea or weather. Shepherd Name of mercy, when was this, boy? Clown Now, now: I have not winked since I saw these sights: the men are not yet cold under water, nor the bear half dined on the gentleman: he's at it now. Shepherd Would I had been by, to have helped the old man! Clown I would you had been by the ship side, to have helped her: there your charity would have lacked footing. Shepherd Heavy matters! heavy matters! but look thee here, boy. Now bless thyself: thou mettest with things dying, I with things newborn. Here's a sight for thee; look thee, a bearing-cloth for a squire's child! look thee here; take up, take up, boy; open't. So, let's see: it was told me I should be rich by the fairies. This is some changeling: open't. What's within, boy? Clown You're a made old man: if the sins of your youth are forgiven you, you're well to live. Gold! all gold! Shepherd This is fairy gold, boy, and 'twill prove so: up with't, keep it close: home, home, the next way. We are lucky, boy; and to be so still requires nothing but secrecy. Let my sheep go: come, good boy, the next way home. Clown Go you the next way with your findings. I'll go see if the bear be gone from the gentleman and how much he hath eaten: they are never curst but when they are hungry: if there be any of him left, I'll bury it. Shepherd That's a good deed. If thou mayest discern by that which is left of him what he is, fetch me to the sight of him. Clown Marry, will I; and you shall help to put him i' the ground. Shepherd 'Tis a lucky day, boy, and we'll do good deeds on't. [Exeunt] THE WINTER'S TALE ACT IV SCENE I: [Enter Time, the Chorus] Time I, that please some, try all, both joy and terror Of good and bad, that makes and unfolds error, Now take upon me, in the name of Time, To use my wings. Impute it not a crime To me or my swift passage, that I slide O'er sixteen years and leave the growth untried Of that wide gap, since it is in my power To o'erthrow law and in one self-born hour To plant and o'erwhelm custom. Let me pass The same I am, ere ancient'st order was Or what is now received: I witness to The times that brought them in; so shall I do To the freshest things now reigning and make stale The glistering of this present, as my tale Now seems to it. Your patience this allowing, I turn my glass and give my scene such growing As you had slept between: Leontes leaving, The effects of his fond jealousies so grieving That he shuts up himself, imagine me, Gentle spectators, that I now may be In fair Bohemia, and remember well, I mentioned a son o' the king's, which Florizel I now name to you; and with speed so pace To speak of Perdita, now grown in grace Equal with wondering: what of her ensues I list not prophecy; but let Time's news Be known when 'tis brought forth. A shepherd's daughter, And what to her adheres, which follows after, Is the argument of Time. Of this allow, If ever you have spent time worse ere now; If never, yet that Time himself doth say He wishes earnestly you never may. [Exit] THE WINTER'S TALE ACT IV SCENE II Bohemia. The palace of POLIXENES. [Enter POLIXENES and CAMILLO] POLIXENES I pray thee, good Camillo, be no more importunate: 'tis a sickness denying thee any thing; a death to grant this. CAMILLO It is fifteen years since I saw my country: though I have for the most part been aired abroad, I desire to lay my bones there. Besides, the penitent king, my master, hath sent for me; to whose feeling sorrows I might be some allay, or I o'erween to think so, which is another spur to my departure. POLIXENES As thou lovest me, Camillo, wipe not out the rest of thy services by leaving me now: the need I have of thee thine own goodness hath made; better not to have had thee than thus to want thee: thou, having made me businesses which none without thee can sufficiently manage, must either stay to execute them thyself or take away with thee the very services thou hast done; which if I have not enough considered, as too much I cannot, to be more thankful to thee shall be my study, and my profit therein the heaping friendships. Of that fatal country, Sicilia, prithee speak no more; whose very naming punishes me with the remembrance of that penitent, as thou callest him, and reconciled king, my brother; whose loss of his most precious queen and children are even now to be afresh lamented. Say to me, when sawest thou the Prince Florizel, my son? Kings are no less unhappy, their issue not being gracious, than they are in losing them when they have approved their virtues. CAMILLO Sir, it is three days since I saw the prince. What his happier affairs may be, are to me unknown: but I have missingly noted, he is of late much retired from court and is less frequent to his princely exercises than formerly he hath appeared. POLIXENES I have considered so much, Camillo, and with some care; so far that I have eyes under my service which look upon his removedness; from whom I have this intelligence, that he is seldom from the house of a most homely shepherd; a man, they say, that from very nothing, and beyond the imagination of his neighbours, is grown into an unspeakable estate. CAMILLO I have heard, sir, of such a man, who hath a daughter of most rare note: the report of her is extended more than can be thought to begin from such a cottage. POLIXENES That's likewise part of my intelligence; but, I fear, the angle that plucks our son thither. Thou shalt accompany us to the place; where we will, not appearing what we are, have some question with the shepherd; from whose simplicity I think it not uneasy to get the cause of my son's resort thither. Prithee, be my present partner in this business, and lay aside the thoughts of Sicilia. CAMILLO I willingly obey your command. POLIXENES My best Camillo! We must disguise ourselves. [Exeunt] THE WINTER'S TALE ACT IV SCENE III A road near the Shepherd's cottage. [Enter AUTOLYCUS, singing] AUTOLYCUS When daffodils begin to peer, With heigh! the doxy over the dale, Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year; For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale. The white sheet bleaching on the hedge, With heigh! the sweet birds, O, how they sing! Doth set my pugging tooth on edge; For a quart of ale is a dish for a king. The lark, that tirra-lyra chants, With heigh! with heigh! the thrush and the jay, Are summer songs for me and my aunts, While we lie tumbling in the hay. I have served Prince Florizel and in my time wore three-pile; but now I am out of service: But shall I go mourn for that, my dear? The pale moon shines by night: And when I wander here and there, I then do most go right. If tinkers may have leave to live, And bear the sow-skin budget, Then my account I well may, give, And in the stocks avouch it. My traffic is sheets; when the kite builds, look to lesser linen. My father named me Autolycus; who being, as I am, littered under Mercury, was likewise a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles. With die and drab I purchased this caparison, and my revenue is the silly cheat. Gallows and knock are too powerful on the highway: beating and hanging are terrors to me: for the life to come, I sleep out the thought of it. A prize! a prize! [Enter Clown] Clown Let me see: every 'leven wether tods; every tod yields pound and odd shilling; fifteen hundred shorn. what comes the wool to? AUTOLYCUS [Aside] If the springe hold, the cock's mine. Clown I cannot do't without counters. Let me see; what am I to buy for our sheep-shearing feast? Three pound of sugar, five pound of currants, rice,--what will this sister of mine do with rice? But my father hath made her mistress of the feast, and she lays it on. She hath made me four and twenty nose-gays for the shearers, three-man-song-men all, and very good ones; but they are most of them means and bases; but one puritan amongst them, and he sings psalms to horn-pipes. I must have saffron to colour the warden pies; mace; dates?--none, that's out of my note; nutmegs, seven; a race or two of ginger, but that I may beg; four pound of prunes, and as many of raisins o' the sun. AUTOLYCUS O that ever I was born! [Grovelling on the ground] Clown I' the name of me-- AUTOLYCUS O, help me, help me! pluck but off these rags; and then, death, death! Clown Alack, poor soul! thou hast need of more rags to lay on thee, rather than have these off. AUTOLYCUS O sir, the loathsomeness of them offends me more than the stripes I have received, which are mighty ones and millions. Clown Alas, poor man! a million of beating may come to a great matter. AUTOLYCUS I am robbed, sir, and beaten; my money and apparel ta'en from me, and these detestable things put upon me. Clown What, by a horseman, or a footman? AUTOLYCUS A footman, sweet sir, a footman. Clown Indeed, he should be a footman by the garments he has left with thee: if this be a horseman's coat, it hath seen very hot service. Lend me thy hand, I'll help thee: come, lend me thy hand. AUTOLYCUS O, good sir, tenderly, O! Clown Alas, poor soul! AUTOLYCUS O, good sir, softly, good sir! I fear, sir, my shoulder-blade is out. Clown How now! canst stand? AUTOLYCUS [Picking his pocket] Softly, dear sir; good sir, softly. You ha' done me a charitable office. Clown Dost lack any money? I have a little money for thee. AUTOLYCUS No, good sweet sir; no, I beseech you, sir: I have a kinsman not past three quarters of a mile hence, unto whom I was going; I shall there have money, or any thing I want: offer me no money, I pray you; that kills my heart. Clown What manner of fellow was he that robbed you? AUTOLYCUS A fellow, sir, that I have known to go about with troll-my-dames; I knew him once a servant of the prince: I cannot tell, good sir, for which of his virtues it was, but he was certainly whipped out of the court. Clown His vices, you would say; there's no virtue whipped out of the court: they cherish it to make it stay there; and yet it will no more but abide. AUTOLYCUS Vices, I would say, sir. I know this man well: he hath been since an ape-bearer; then a process-server, a bailiff; then he compassed a motion of the Prodigal Son, and married a tinker's wife within a mile where my land and living lies; and, having flown over many knavish professions, he settled only in rogue: some call him Autolycus. Clown Out upon him! prig, for my life, prig: he haunts wakes, fairs and bear-baitings. AUTOLYCUS Very true, sir; he, sir, he; that's the rogue that put me into this apparel. Clown Not a more cowardly rogue in all Bohemia: if you had but looked big and spit at him, he'ld have run. AUTOLYCUS I must confess to you, sir, I am no fighter: I am false of heart that way; and that he knew, I warrant him. Clown How do you now? AUTOLYCUS Sweet sir, much better than I was; I can stand and walk: I will even take my leave of you, and pace softly towards my kinsman's. Clown Shall I bring thee on the way? AUTOLYCUS No, good-faced sir; no, sweet sir. Clown Then fare thee well: I must go buy spices for our sheep-shearing. AUTOLYCUS Prosper you, sweet sir! [Exit Clown] Your purse is not hot enough to purchase your spice. I'll be with you at your sheep-shearing too: if I make not this cheat bring out another and the shearers prove sheep, let me be unrolled and my name put in the book of virtue! [Sings] Jog on, jog on, the foot-path way, And merrily hent the stile-a: A merry heart goes all the day, Your sad tires in a mile-a. [Exit] THE WINTER'S TALE ACT IV SCENE IV The Shepherd's cottage. [Enter FLORIZEL and PERDITA] FLORIZEL These your unusual weeds to each part of you Do give a life: no shepherdess, but Flora Peering in April's front. This your sheep-shearing Is as a meeting of the petty gods, And you the queen on't. PERDITA Sir, my gracious lord, To chide at your extremes it not becomes me: O, pardon, that I name them! Your high self, The gracious mark o' the land, you have obscured With a swain's wearing, and me, poor lowly maid, Most goddess-like prank'd up: but that our feasts In every mess have folly and the feeders Digest it with a custom, I should blush To see you so attired, sworn, I think, To show myself a glass. FLORIZEL I bless the time When my good falcon made her flight across Thy father's ground. PERDITA Now Jove afford you cause! To me the difference forges dread; your greatness Hath not been used to fear. Even now I tremble To think your father, by some accident, Should pass this way as you did: O, the Fates! How would he look, to see his work so noble Vilely bound up? What would he say? Or how Should I, in these my borrow'd flaunts, behold The sternness of his presence? FLORIZEL Apprehend Nothing but jollity. The gods themselves, Humbling their deities to love, have taken The shapes of beasts upon them: Jupiter Became a bull, and bellow'd; the green Neptune A ram, and bleated; and the fire-robed god, Golden Apollo, a poor humble swain, As I seem now. Their transformations Were never for a piece of beauty rarer, Nor in a way so chaste, since my desires Run not before mine honour, nor my lusts Burn hotter than my faith. PERDITA O, but, sir, Your resolution cannot hold, when 'tis Opposed, as it must be, by the power of the king: One of these two must be necessities, Which then will speak, that you must change this purpose, Or I my life. FLORIZEL Thou dearest Perdita, With these forced thoughts, I prithee, darken not The mirth o' the feast. Or I'll be thine, my fair, Or not my father's. For I cannot be Mine own, nor any thing to any, if I be not thine. To this I am most constant, Though destiny say no. Be merry, gentle; Strangle such thoughts as these with any thing That you behold the while. Your guests are coming: Lift up your countenance, as it were the day Of celebration of that nuptial which We two have sworn shall come. PERDITA O lady Fortune, Stand you auspicious! FLORIZEL See, your guests approach: Address yourself to entertain them sprightly, And let's be red with mirth. [Enter Shepherd, Clown, MOPSA, DORCAS, and others, with POLIXENES and CAMILLO disguised] Shepherd Fie, daughter! when my old wife lived, upon This day she was both pantler, butler, cook, Both dame and servant; welcomed all, served all; Would sing her song and dance her turn; now here, At upper end o' the table, now i' the middle; On his shoulder, and his; her face o' fire With labour and the thing she took to quench it, She would to each one sip. You are retired, As if you were a feasted one and not The hostess of the meeting: pray you, bid These unknown friends to's welcome; for it is A way to make us better friends, more known. Come, quench your blushes and present yourself That which you are, mistress o' the feast: come on, And bid us welcome to your sheep-shearing, As your good flock shall prosper. PERDITA [To POLIXENES] Sir, welcome: It is my father's will I should take on me The hostess-ship o' the day. [To CAMILLO] You're welcome, sir. Give me those flowers there, Dorcas. Reverend sirs, For you there's rosemary and rue; these keep Seeming and savour all the winter long: Grace and remembrance be to you both, And welcome to our shearing! POLIXENES Shepherdess, A fair one are you--well you fit our ages With flowers of winter. PERDITA Sir, the year growing ancient, Not yet on summer's death, nor on the birth Of trembling winter, the fairest flowers o' the season Are our carnations and streak'd gillyvors, Which some call nature's bastards: of that kind Our rustic garden's barren; and I care not To get slips of them. POLIXENES Wherefore, gentle maiden, Do you neglect them? PERDITA For I have heard it said There is an art which in their piedness shares With great creating nature. POLIXENES Say there be; Yet nature is made better by no mean But nature makes that mean: so, over that art Which you say adds to nature, is an art That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry A gentler scion to the wildest stock, And make conceive a bark of baser kind By bud of nobler race: this is an art Which does mend nature, change it rather, but The art itself is nature. PERDITA So it is. POLIXENES Then make your garden rich in gillyvors, And do not call them bastards. PERDITA I'll not put The dibble in earth to set one slip of them; No more than were I painted I would wish This youth should say 'twere well and only therefore Desire to breed by me. Here's flowers for you; Hot lavender, mints, savoury, marjoram; The marigold, that goes to bed wi' the sun And with him rises weeping: these are flowers Of middle summer, and I think they are given To men of middle age. You're very welcome. CAMILLO I should leave grazing, were I of your flock, And only live by gazing. PERDITA Out, alas! You'd be so lean, that blasts of January Would blow you through and through. Now, my fair'st friend, I would I had some flowers o' the spring that might Become your time of day; and yours, and yours, That wear upon your virgin branches yet Your maidenheads growing: O Proserpina, For the flowers now, that frighted thou let'st fall From Dis's waggon! daffodils, That come before the swallow dares, and take The winds of March with beauty; violets dim, But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses That die unmarried, ere they can behold Bight Phoebus in his strength--a malady Most incident to maids; bold oxlips and The crown imperial; lilies of all kinds, The flower-de-luce being one! O, these I lack, To make you garlands of, and my sweet friend, To strew him o'er and o'er! FLORIZEL What, like a corse? PERDITA No, like a bank for love to lie and play on; Not like a corse; or if, not to be buried, But quick and in mine arms. Come, take your flowers: Methinks I play as I have seen them do In Whitsun pastorals: sure this robe of mine Does change my disposition. FLORIZEL What you do Still betters what is done. When you speak, sweet. I'ld have you do it ever: when you sing, I'ld have you buy and sell so, so give alms, Pray so; and, for the ordering your affairs, To sing them too: when you do dance, I wish you A wave o' the sea, that you might ever do Nothing but that; move still, still so, And own no other function: each your doing, So singular in each particular, Crowns what you are doing in the present deed, That all your acts are queens. PERDITA O Doricles, Your praises are too large: but that your youth, And the true blood which peepeth fairly through't, Do plainly give you out an unstain'd shepherd, With wisdom I might fear, my Doricles, You woo'd me the false way. FLORIZEL I think you have As little skill to fear as I have purpose To put you to't. But come; our dance, I pray: Your hand, my Perdita: so turtles pair, That never mean to part. PERDITA I'll swear for 'em. POLIXENES This is the prettiest low-born lass that ever Ran on the green-sward: nothing she does or seems But smacks of something greater than herself, Too noble for this place. CAMILLO He tells her something That makes her blood look out: good sooth, she is The queen of curds and cream. Clown Come on, strike up! DORCAS Mopsa must be your mistress: marry, garlic, To mend her kissing with! MOPSA Now, in good time! Clown Not a word, a word; we stand upon our manners. Come, strike up! [Music. Here a dance of Shepherds and Shepherdesses] POLIXENES Pray, good shepherd, what fair swain is this Which dances with your daughter? Shepherd They call him Doricles; and boasts himself To have a worthy feeding: but I have it Upon his own report and I believe it; He looks like sooth. He says he loves my daughter: I think so too; for never gazed the moon Upon the water as he'll stand and read As 'twere my daughter's eyes: and, to be plain. I think there is not half a kiss to choose Who loves another best. POLIXENES She dances featly. Shepherd So she does any thing; though I report it, That should be silent: if young Doricles Do light upon her, she shall bring him that Which he not dreams of. [Enter Servant] Servant O master, if you did but hear the pedlar at the door, you would never dance again after a tabour and pipe; no, the bagpipe could not move you: he sings several tunes faster than you'll tell money; he utters them as he had eaten ballads and all men's ears grew to his tunes. Clown He could never come better; he shall come in. I love a ballad but even too well, if it be doleful matter merrily set down, or a very pleasant thing indeed and sung lamentably. Servant He hath songs for man or woman, of all sizes; no milliner can so fit his customers with gloves: he has the prettiest love-songs for maids; so without bawdry, which is strange; with such delicate burthens of dildos and fadings, 'jump her and thump her;' and where some stretch-mouthed rascal would, as it were, mean mischief and break a foul gap into the matter, he makes the maid to answer 'Whoop, do me no harm, good man;' puts him off, slights him, with 'Whoop, do me no harm, good man.' POLIXENES This is a brave fellow. Clown Believe me, thou talkest of an admirable conceited fellow. Has he any unbraided wares? Servant He hath ribbons of an the colours i' the rainbow; points more than all the lawyers in Bohemia can learnedly handle, though they come to him by the gross: inkles, caddisses, cambrics, lawns: why, he sings 'em over as they were gods or goddesses; you would think a smock were a she-angel, he so chants to the sleeve-hand and the work about the square on't. Clown Prithee bring him in; and let him approach singing. PERDITA Forewarn him that he use no scurrilous words in 's tunes. [Exit Servant] Clown You have of these pedlars, that have more in them than you'ld think, sister. PERDITA Ay, good brother, or go about to think. [Enter AUTOLYCUS, singing] AUTOLYCUS Lawn as white as driven snow; Cyprus black as e'er was crow; Gloves as sweet as damask roses; Masks for faces and for noses; Bugle bracelet, necklace amber, Perfume for a lady's chamber; Golden quoifs and stomachers, For my lads to give their dears: Pins and poking-sticks of steel, What maids lack from head to heel: Come buy of me, come; come buy, come buy; Buy lads, or else your lasses cry: Come buy. Clown If I were not in love with Mopsa, thou shouldst take no money of me; but being enthralled as I am, it will also be the bondage of certain ribbons and gloves. MOPSA I was promised them against the feast; but they come not too late now. DORCAS He hath promised you more than that, or there be liars. MOPSA He hath paid you all he promised you; may be, he has paid you more, which will shame you to give him again. Clown Is there no manners left among maids? will they wear their plackets where they should bear their faces? Is there not milking-time, when you are going to bed, or kiln-hole, to whistle off these secrets, but you must be tittle-tattling before all our guests? 'tis well they are whispering: clamour your tongues, and not a word more. MOPSA I have done. Come, you promised me a tawdry-lace and a pair of sweet gloves. Clown Have I not told thee how I was cozened by the way and lost all my money? AUTOLYCUS And indeed, sir, there are cozeners abroad; therefore it behoves men to be wary. Clown Fear not thou, man, thou shalt lose nothing here. AUTOLYCUS I hope so, sir; for I have about me many parcels of charge. Clown What hast here? ballads? MOPSA Pray now, buy some: I love a ballad in print o' life, for then we are sure they are true. AUTOLYCUS Here's one to a very doleful tune, how a usurer's wife was brought to bed of twenty money-bags at a burthen and how she longed to eat adders' heads and toads carbonadoed. MOPSA Is it true, think you? AUTOLYCUS Very true, and but a month old. DORCAS Bless me from marrying a usurer! AUTOLYCUS Here's the midwife's name to't, one Mistress Tale-porter, and five or six honest wives that were present. Why should I carry lies abroad? MOPSA Pray you now, buy it. Clown Come on, lay it by: and let's first see moe ballads; we'll buy the other things anon. AUTOLYCUS Here's another ballad of a fish, that appeared upon the coast on Wednesday the four-score of April, forty thousand fathom above water, and sung this ballad against the hard hearts of maids: it was thought she was a woman and was turned into a cold fish for she would not exchange flesh with one that loved her: the ballad is very pitiful and as true. DORCAS Is it true too, think you? AUTOLYCUS Five justices' hands at it, and witnesses more than my pack will hold. Clown Lay it by too: another. AUTOLYCUS This is a merry ballad, but a very pretty one. MOPSA Let's have some merry ones. AUTOLYCUS Why, this is a passing merry one and goes to the tune of 'Two maids wooing a man:' there's scarce a maid westward but she sings it; 'tis in request, I can tell you. MOPSA We can both sing it: if thou'lt bear a part, thou shalt hear; 'tis in three parts. DORCAS We had the tune on't a month ago. AUTOLYCUS I can bear my part; you must know 'tis my occupation; have at it with you. [SONG] AUTOLYCUS Get you hence, for I must go Where it fits not you to know. DORCAS Whither? MOPSA O, whither? DORCAS Whither? MOPSA It becomes thy oath full well, Thou to me thy secrets tell. DORCAS Me too, let me go thither. MOPSA Or thou goest to the orange or mill. DORCAS If to either, thou dost ill. AUTOLYCUS Neither. DORCAS What, neither? AUTOLYCUS Neither. DORCAS Thou hast sworn my love to be. MOPSA Thou hast sworn it more to me: Then whither goest? say, whither? Clown We'll have this song out anon by ourselves: my father and the gentlemen are in sad talk, and we'll not trouble them. Come, bring away thy pack after me. Wenches, I'll buy for you both. Pedlar, let's have the first choice. Follow me, girls. [Exit with DORCAS and MOPSA] AUTOLYCUS And you shall pay well for 'em. [Follows singing] Will you buy any tape, Or lace for your cape, My dainty duck, my dear-a? Any silk, any thread, Any toys for your head, Of the new'st and finest, finest wear-a? Come to the pedlar; Money's a medler. That doth utter all men's ware-a. [Exit] [Re-enter Servant] Servant Master, there is three carters, three shepherds, three neat-herds, three swine-herds, that have made themselves all men of hair, they call themselves Saltiers, and they have a dance which the wenches say is a gallimaufry of gambols, because they are not in't; but they themselves are o' the mind, if it be not too rough for some that know little but bowling, it will please plentifully. Shepherd Away! we'll none on 't: here has been too much homely foolery already. I know, sir, we weary you. POLIXENES You weary those that refresh us: pray, let's see these four threes of herdsmen. Servant One three of them, by their own report, sir, hath danced before the king; and not the worst of the three but jumps twelve foot and a half by the squier. Shepherd Leave your prating: since these good men are pleased, let them come in; but quickly now. Servant Why, they stay at door, sir. [Exit] [Here a dance of twelve Satyrs] POLIXENES O, father, you'll know more of that hereafter. [To CAMILLO] Is it not too far gone? 'Tis time to part them. He's simple and tells much. [To FLORIZEL] How now, fair shepherd! Your heart is full of something that does take Your mind from feasting. Sooth, when I was young And handed love as you do, I was wont To load my she with knacks: I would have ransack'd The pedlar's silken treasury and have pour'd it To her acceptance; you have let him go And nothing marted with him. If your lass Interpretation should abuse and call this Your lack of love or bounty, you were straited For a reply, at least if you make a care Of happy holding her. FLORIZEL Old sir, I know She prizes not such trifles as these are: The gifts she looks from me are pack'd and lock'd Up in my heart; which I have given already, But not deliver'd. O, hear me breathe my life Before this ancient sir, who, it should seem, Hath sometime loved! I take thy hand, this hand, As soft as dove's down and as white as it, Or Ethiopian's tooth, or the fann'd snow that's bolted By the northern blasts twice o'er. POLIXENES What follows this? How prettily the young swain seems to wash The hand was fair before! I have put you out: But to your protestation; let me hear What you profess. FLORIZEL Do, and be witness to 't. POLIXENES And this my neighbour too? FLORIZEL And he, and more Than he, and men, the earth, the heavens, and all: That, were I crown'd the most imperial monarch, Thereof most worthy, were I the fairest youth That ever made eye swerve, had force and knowledge More than was ever man's, I would not prize them Without her love; for her employ them all; Commend them and condemn them to her service Or to their own perdition. POLIXENES Fairly offer'd. CAMILLO This shows a sound affection. Shepherd But, my daughter, Say you the like to him? PERDITA I cannot speak So well, nothing so well; no, nor mean better: By the pattern of mine own thoughts I cut out The purity of his. Shepherd Take hands, a bargain! And, friends unknown, you shall bear witness to 't: I give my daughter to him, and will make Her portion equal his. FLORIZEL O, that must be I' the virtue of your daughter: one being dead, I shall have more than you can dream of yet; Enough then for your wonder. But, come on, Contract us 'fore these witnesses. Shepherd Come, your hand; And, daughter, yours. POLIXENES Soft, swain, awhile, beseech you; Have you a father? FLORIZEL I have: but what of him? POLIXENES Knows he of this? FLORIZEL He neither does nor shall. POLIXENES Methinks a father Is at the nuptial of his son a guest That best becomes the table. Pray you once more, Is not your father grown incapable Of reasonable affairs? is he not stupid With age and altering rheums? can he speak? hear? Know man from man? dispute his own estate? Lies he not bed-rid? and again does nothing But what he did being childish? FLORIZEL No, good sir; He has his health and ampler strength indeed Than most have of his age. POLIXENES By my white beard, You offer him, if this be so, a wrong Something unfilial: reason my son Should choose himself a wife, but as good reason The father, all whose joy is nothing else But fair posterity, should hold some counsel In such a business. FLORIZEL I yield all this; But for some other reasons, my grave sir, Which 'tis not fit you know, I not acquaint My father of this business. POLIXENES Let him know't. FLORIZEL He shall not. POLIXENES Prithee, let him. FLORIZEL No, he must not. Shepherd Let him, my son: he shall not need to grieve At knowing of thy choice. FLORIZEL Come, come, he must not. Mark our contract. POLIXENES Mark your divorce, young sir, [Discovering himself] Whom son I dare not call; thou art too base To be acknowledged: thou a sceptre's heir, That thus affect'st a sheep-hook! Thou old traitor, I am sorry that by hanging thee I can But shorten thy life one week. And thou, fresh piece Of excellent witchcraft, who of force must know The royal fool thou copest with,-- Shepherd O, my heart! POLIXENES I'll have thy beauty scratch'd with briers, and made More homely than thy state. For thee, fond boy, If I may ever know thou dost but sigh That thou no more shalt see this knack, as never I mean thou shalt, we'll bar thee from succession; Not hold thee of our blood, no, not our kin, Far than Deucalion off: mark thou my words: Follow us to the court. Thou churl, for this time, Though full of our displeasure, yet we free thee From the dead blow of it. And you, enchantment.-- Worthy enough a herdsman: yea, him too, That makes himself, but for our honour therein, Unworthy thee,--if ever henceforth thou These rural latches to his entrance open, Or hoop his body more with thy embraces, I will devise a death as cruel for thee As thou art tender to't. [Exit] PERDITA Even here undone! I was not much afeard; for once or twice I was about to speak and tell him plainly, The selfsame sun that shines upon his court Hides not his visage from our cottage but Looks on alike. Will't please you, sir, be gone? I told you what would come of this: beseech you, Of your own state take care: this dream of mine,-- Being now awake, I'll queen it no inch farther, But milk my ewes and weep. CAMILLO Why, how now, father! Speak ere thou diest. Shepherd I cannot speak, nor think Nor dare to know that which I know. O sir! You have undone a man of fourscore three, That thought to fill his grave in quiet, yea, To die upon the bed my father died, To lie close by his honest bones: but now Some hangman must put on my shroud and lay me Where no priest shovels in dust. O cursed wretch, That knew'st this was the prince, and wouldst adventure To mingle faith with him! Undone! undone! If I might die within this hour, I have lived To die when I desire. [Exit] FLORIZEL Why look you so upon me? I am but sorry, not afeard; delay'd, But nothing alter'd: what I was, I am; More straining on for plucking back, not following My leash unwillingly. CAMILLO Gracious my lord, You know your father's temper: at this time He will allow no speech, which I do guess You do not purpose to him; and as hardly Will he endure your sight as yet, I fear: Then, till the fury of his highness settle, Come not before him. FLORIZEL I not purpose it. I think, Camillo? CAMILLO Even he, my lord. PERDITA How often have I told you 'twould be thus! How often said, my dignity would last But till 'twere known! FLORIZEL It cannot fail but by The violation of my faith; and then Let nature crush the sides o' the earth together And mar the seeds within! Lift up thy looks: From my succession wipe me, father; I Am heir to my affection. CAMILLO Be advised. FLORIZEL I am, and by my fancy: if my reason Will thereto be obedient, I have reason; If not, my senses, better pleased with madness, Do bid it welcome. CAMILLO This is desperate, sir. FLORIZEL So call it: but it does fulfil my vow; I needs must think it honesty. Camillo, Not for Bohemia, nor the pomp that may Be thereat glean'd, for all the sun sees or The close earth wombs or the profound sea hides In unknown fathoms, will I break my oath To this my fair beloved: therefore, I pray you, As you have ever been my father's honour'd friend, When he shall miss me,--as, in faith, I mean not To see him any more,--cast your good counsels Upon his passion; let myself and fortune Tug for the time to come. This you may know And so deliver, I am put to sea With her whom here I cannot hold on shore; And most opportune to our need I have A vessel rides fast by, but not prepared For this design. What course I mean to hold Shall nothing benefit your knowledge, nor Concern me the reporting. CAMILLO O my lord! I would your spirit were easier for advice, Or stronger for your need. FLORIZEL Hark, Perdita [Drawing her aside] I'll hear you by and by. CAMILLO He's irremoveable, Resolved for flight. Now were I happy, if His going I could frame to serve my turn, Save him from danger, do him love and honour, Purchase the sight again of dear Sicilia And that unhappy king, my master, whom I so much thirst to see. FLORIZEL Now, good Camillo; I am so fraught with curious business that I leave out ceremony. CAMILLO Sir, I think You have heard of my poor services, i' the love That I have borne your father? FLORIZEL Very nobly Have you deserved: it is my father's music To speak your deeds, not little of his care To have them recompensed as thought on. CAMILLO Well, my lord, If you may please to think I love the king And through him what is nearest to him, which is Your gracious self, embrace but my direction: If your more ponderous and settled project May suffer alteration, on mine honour, I'll point you where you shall have such receiving As shall become your highness; where you may Enjoy your mistress, from the whom, I see, There's no disjunction to be made, but by-- As heavens forefend!--your ruin; marry her, And, with my best endeavours in your absence, Your discontenting father strive to qualify And bring him up to liking. FLORIZEL How, Camillo, May this, almost a miracle, be done? That I may call thee something more than man And after that trust to thee. CAMILLO Have you thought on A place whereto you'll go? FLORIZEL Not any yet: But as the unthought-on accident is guilty To what we wildly do, so we profess Ourselves to be the slaves of chance and flies Of every wind that blows. CAMILLO Then list to me: This follows, if you will not change your purpose But undergo this flight, make for Sicilia, And there present yourself and your fair princess, For so I see she must be, 'fore Leontes: She shall be habited as it becomes The partner of your bed. Methinks I see Leontes opening his free arms and weeping His welcomes forth; asks thee the son forgiveness, As 'twere i' the father's person; kisses the hands Of your fresh princess; o'er and o'er divides him 'Twixt his unkindness and his kindness; the one He chides to hell and bids the other grow Faster than thought or time. FLORIZEL Worthy Camillo, What colour for my visitation shall I Hold up before him? CAMILLO Sent by the king your father To greet him and to give him comforts. Sir, The manner of your bearing towards him, with What you as from your father shall deliver, Things known betwixt us three, I'll write you down: The which shall point you forth at every sitting What you must say; that he shall not perceive But that you have your father's bosom there And speak his very heart. FLORIZEL I am bound to you: There is some sap in this. CAMILLO A cause more promising Than a wild dedication of yourselves To unpath'd waters, undream'd shores, most certain To miseries enough; no hope to help you, But as you shake off one to take another; Nothing so certain as your anchors, who Do their best office, if they can but stay you Where you'll be loath to be: besides you know Prosperity's the very bond of love, Whose fresh complexion and whose heart together Affliction alters. PERDITA One of these is true: I think affliction may subdue the cheek, But not take in the mind. CAMILLO Yea, say you so? There shall not at your father's house these seven years Be born another such. FLORIZEL My good Camillo, She is as forward of her breeding as She is i' the rear our birth. CAMILLO I cannot say 'tis pity She lacks instructions, for she seems a mistress To most that teach. PERDITA Your pardon, sir; for this I'll blush you thanks. FLORIZEL My prettiest Perdita! But O, the thorns we stand upon! Camillo, Preserver of my father, now of me, The medicine of our house, how shall we do? We are not furnish'd like Bohemia's son, Nor shall appear in Sicilia. CAMILLO My lord, Fear none of this: I think you know my fortunes Do all lie there: it shall be so my care To have you royally appointed as if The scene you play were mine. For instance, sir, That you may know you shall not want, one word. [They talk aside] [Re-enter AUTOLYCUS] AUTOLYCUS Ha, ha! what a fool Honesty is! and Trust, his sworn brother, a very simple gentleman! I have sold all my trumpery; not a counterfeit stone, not a ribbon, glass, pomander, brooch, table-book, ballad, knife, tape, glove, shoe-tie, bracelet, horn-ring, to keep my pack from fasting: they throng who should buy first, as if my trinkets had been hallowed and brought a benediction to the buyer: by which means I saw whose purse was best in picture; and what I saw, to my good use I remembered. My clown, who wants but something to be a reasonable man, grew so in love with the wenches' song, that he would not stir his pettitoes till he had both tune and words; which so drew the rest of the herd to me that all their other senses stuck in ears: you might have pinched a placket, it was senseless; 'twas nothing to geld a codpiece of a purse; I could have filed keys off that hung in chains: no hearing, no feeling, but my sir's song, and admiring the nothing of it. So that in this time of lethargy I picked and cut most of their festival purses; and had not the old man come in with a whoo-bub against his daughter and the king's son and scared my choughs from the chaff, I had not left a purse alive in the whole army. [CAMILLO, FLORIZEL, and PERDITA come forward] CAMILLO Nay, but my letters, by this means being there So soon as you arrive, shall clear that doubt. FLORIZEL And those that you'll procure from King Leontes-- CAMILLO Shall satisfy your father. PERDITA Happy be you! All that you speak shows fair. CAMILLO Who have we here? [Seeing AUTOLYCUS] We'll make an instrument of this, omit Nothing may give us aid. AUTOLYCUS If they have overheard me now, why, hanging. CAMILLO How now, good fellow! why shakest thou so? Fear not, man; here's no harm intended to thee. AUTOLYCUS I am a poor fellow, sir. CAMILLO Why, be so still; here's nobody will steal that from thee: yet for the outside of thy poverty we must make an exchange; therefore discase thee instantly, --thou must think there's a necessity in't,--and change garments with this gentleman: though the pennyworth on his side be the worst, yet hold thee, there's some boot. AUTOLYCUS I am a poor fellow, sir. [Aside] I know ye well enough. CAMILLO Nay, prithee, dispatch: the gentleman is half flayed already. AUTOLYCUS Are you in earnest, sir? [Aside] I smell the trick on't. FLORIZEL Dispatch, I prithee. AUTOLYCUS Indeed, I have had earnest: but I cannot with conscience take it. CAMILLO Unbuckle, unbuckle. [FLORIZEL and AUTOLYCUS exchange garments] Fortunate mistress,--let my prophecy Come home to ye!--you must retire yourself Into some covert: take your sweetheart's hat And pluck it o'er your brows, muffle your face, Dismantle you, and, as you can, disliken The truth of your own seeming; that you may-- For I do fear eyes over--to shipboard Get undescried. PERDITA I see the play so lies That I must bear a part. CAMILLO No remedy. Have you done there? FLORIZEL Should I now meet my father, He would not call me son. CAMILLO Nay, you shall have no hat. [Giving it to PERDITA] Come, lady, come. Farewell, my friend. AUTOLYCUS Adieu, sir. FLORIZEL O Perdita, what have we twain forgot! Pray you, a word. CAMILLO [Aside] What I do next, shall be to tell the king Of this escape and whither they are bound; Wherein my hope is I shall so prevail To force him after: in whose company I shall review Sicilia, for whose sight I have a woman's longing. FLORIZEL Fortune speed us! Thus we set on, Camillo, to the sea-side. CAMILLO The swifter speed the better. [Exeunt FLORIZEL, PERDITA, and CAMILLO] AUTOLYCUS I understand the business, I hear it: to have an open ear, a quick eye, and a nimble hand, is necessary for a cut-purse; a good nose is requisite also, to smell out work for the other senses. I see this is the time that the unjust man doth thrive. What an exchange had this been without boot! What a boot is here with this exchange! Sure the gods do this year connive at us, and we may do any thing extempore. The prince himself is about a piece of iniquity, stealing away from his father with his clog at his heels: if I thought it were a piece of honesty to acquaint the king withal, I would not do't: I hold it the more knavery to conceal it; and therein am I constant to my profession. [Re-enter Clown and Shepherd] Aside, aside; here is more matter for a hot brain: every lane's end, every shop, church, session, hanging, yields a careful man work. Clown See, see; what a man you are now! There is no other way but to tell the king she's a changeling and none of your flesh and blood. Shepherd Nay, but hear me. Clown Nay, but hear me. Shepherd Go to, then. Clown She being none of your flesh and blood, your flesh and blood has not offended the king; and so your flesh and blood is not to be punished by him. Show those things you found about her, those secret things, all but what she has with her: this being done, let the law go whistle: I warrant you. Shepherd I will tell the king all, every word, yea, and his son's pranks too; who, I may say, is no honest man, neither to his father nor to me, to go about to make me the king's brother-in-law. Clown Indeed, brother-in-law was the farthest off you could have been to him and then your blood had been the dearer by I know how much an ounce. AUTOLYCUS [Aside] Very wisely, puppies! Shepherd Well, let us to the king: there is that in this fardel will make him scratch his beard. AUTOLYCUS [Aside] I know not what impediment this complaint may be to the flight of my master. Clown Pray heartily he be at palace. AUTOLYCUS [Aside] Though I am not naturally honest, I am so sometimes by chance: let me pocket up my pedlar's excrement. [Takes off his false beard] How now, rustics! whither are you bound? Shepherd To the palace, an it like your worship. AUTOLYCUS Your affairs there, what, with whom, the condition of that fardel, the place of your dwelling, your names, your ages, of what having, breeding, and any thing that is fitting to be known, discover. Clown We are but plain fellows, sir. AUTOLYCUS A lie; you are rough and hairy. Let me have no lying: it becomes none but tradesmen, and they often give us soldiers the lie: but we pay them for it with stamped coin, not stabbing steel; therefore they do not give us the lie. Clown Your worship had like to have given us one, if you had not taken yourself with the manner. Shepherd Are you a courtier, an't like you, sir? AUTOLYCUS Whether it like me or no, I am a courtier. Seest thou not the air of the court in these enfoldings? hath not my gait in it the measure of the court? receives not thy nose court-odor from me? reflect I not on thy baseness court-contempt? Thinkest thou, for that I insinuate, or toaze from thee thy business, I am therefore no courtier? I am courtier cap-a-pe; and one that will either push on or pluck back thy business there: whereupon I command thee to open thy affair. Shepherd My business, sir, is to the king. AUTOLYCUS What advocate hast thou to him? Shepherd I know not, an't like you. Clown Advocate's the court-word for a pheasant: say you have none. Shepherd None, sir; I have no pheasant, cock nor hen. AUTOLYCUS How blessed are we that are not simple men! Yet nature might have made me as these are, Therefore I will not disdain. Clown This cannot be but a great courtier. Shepherd His garments are rich, but he wears them not handsomely. Clown He seems to be the more noble in being fantastical: a great man, I'll warrant; I know by the picking on's teeth. AUTOLYCUS The fardel there? what's i' the fardel? Wherefore that box? Shepherd Sir, there lies such secrets in this fardel and box, which none must know but the king; and which he shall know within this hour, if I may come to the speech of him. AUTOLYCUS Age, thou hast lost thy labour. Shepherd Why, sir? AUTOLYCUS The king is not at the palace; he is gone aboard a new ship to purge melancholy and air himself: for, if thou beest capable of things serious, thou must know the king is full of grief. Shepard So 'tis said, sir; about his son, that should have married a shepherd's daughter. AUTOLYCUS If that shepherd be not in hand-fast, let him fly: the curses he shall have, the tortures he shall feel, will break the back of man, the heart of monster. Clown Think you so, sir? AUTOLYCUS Not he alone shall suffer what wit can make heavy and vengeance bitter; but those that are germane to him, though removed fifty times, shall all come under the hangman: which though it be great pity, yet it is necessary. An old sheep-whistling rogue a ram-tender, to offer to have his daughter come into grace! Some say he shall be stoned; but that death is too soft for him, say I draw our throne into a sheep-cote! all deaths are too few, the sharpest too easy. Clown Has the old man e'er a son, sir, do you hear. an't like you, sir? AUTOLYCUS He has a son, who shall be flayed alive; then 'nointed over with honey, set on the head of a wasp's nest; then stand till he be three quarters and a dram dead; then recovered again with aqua-vitae or some other hot infusion; then, raw as he is, and in the hottest day prognostication proclaims, shall be be set against a brick-wall, the sun looking with a southward eye upon him, where he is to behold him with flies blown to death. But what talk we of these traitorly rascals, whose miseries are to be smiled at, their offences being so capital? Tell me, for you seem to be honest plain men, what you have to the king: being something gently considered, I'll bring you where he is aboard, tender your persons to his presence, whisper him in your behalfs; and if it be in man besides the king to effect your suits, here is man shall do it. Clown He seems to be of great authority: close with him, give him gold; and though authority be a stubborn bear, yet he is oft led by the nose with gold: show the inside of your purse to the outside of his hand, and no more ado. Remember 'stoned,' and 'flayed alive.' Shepherd An't please you, sir, to undertake the business for us, here is that gold I have: I'll make it as much more and leave this young man in pawn till I bring it you. AUTOLYCUS After I have done what I promised? Shepherd Ay, sir. AUTOLYCUS Well, give me the moiety. Are you a party in this business? Clown In some sort, sir: but though my case be a pitiful one, I hope I shall not be flayed out of it. AUTOLYCUS O, that's the case of the shepherd's son: hang him, he'll be made an example. Clown Comfort, good comfort! We must to the king and show our strange sights: he must know 'tis none of your daughter nor my sister; we are gone else. Sir, I will give you as much as this old man does when the business is performed, and remain, as he says, your pawn till it be brought you. AUTOLYCUS I will trust you. Walk before toward the sea-side; go on the right hand: I will but look upon the hedge and follow you. Clown We are blest in this man, as I may say, even blest. Shepherd Let's before as he bids us: he was provided to do us good. [Exeunt Shepherd and Clown] AUTOLYCUS If I had a mind to be honest, I see Fortune would not suffer me: she drops booties in my mouth. I am courted now with a double occasion, gold and a means to do the prince my master good; which who knows how that may turn back to my advancement? I will bring these two moles, these blind ones, aboard him: if he think it fit to shore them again and that the complaint they have to the king concerns him nothing, let him call me rogue for being so far officious; for I am proof against that title and what shame else belongs to't. To him will I present them: there may be matter in it. [Exit] THE WINTER'S TALE ACT V SCENE I A room in LEONTES' palace. [Enter LEONTES, CLEOMENES, DION, PAULINA, and Servants] CLEOMENES Sir, you have done enough, and have perform'd A saint-like sorrow: no fault could you make, Which you have not redeem'd; indeed, paid down More penitence than done trespass: at the last, Do as the heavens have done, forget your evil; With them forgive yourself. LEONTES Whilst I remember Her and her virtues, I cannot forget My blemishes in them, and so still think of The wrong I did myself; which was so much, That heirless it hath made my kingdom and Destroy'd the sweet'st companion that e'er man Bred his hopes out of. PAULINA True, too true, my lord: If, one by one, you wedded all the world, Or from the all that are took something good, To make a perfect woman, she you kill'd Would be unparallel'd. LEONTES I think so. Kill'd! She I kill'd! I did so: but thou strikest me Sorely, to say I did; it is as bitter Upon thy tongue as in my thought: now, good now, Say so but seldom. CLEOMENES Not at all, good lady: You might have spoken a thousand things that would Have done the time more benefit and graced Your kindness better. PAULINA You are one of those Would have him wed again. DION If you would not so, You pity not the state, nor the remembrance Of his most sovereign name; consider little What dangers, by his highness' fail of issue, May drop upon his kingdom and devour Incertain lookers on. What were more holy Than to rejoice the former queen is well? What holier than, for royalty's repair, For present comfort and for future good, To bless the bed of majesty again With a sweet fellow to't? PAULINA There is none worthy, Respecting her that's gone. Besides, the gods Will have fulfill'd their secret purposes; For has not the divine Apollo said, Is't not the tenor of his oracle, That King Leontes shall not have an heir Till his lost child be found? which that it shall, Is all as monstrous to our human reason As my Antigonus to break his grave And come again to me; who, on my life, Did perish with the infant. 'Tis your counsel My lord should to the heavens be contrary, Oppose against their wills. [To LEONTES] Care not for issue; The crown will find an heir: great Alexander Left his to the worthiest; so his successor Was like to be the best. LEONTES Good Paulina, Who hast the memory of Hermione, I know, in honour, O, that ever I Had squared me to thy counsel! then, even now, I might have look'd upon my queen's full eyes, Have taken treasure from her lips-- PAULINA And left them More rich for what they yielded. LEONTES Thou speak'st truth. No more such wives; therefore, no wife: one worse, And better used, would make her sainted spirit Again possess her corpse, and on this stage, Where we're offenders now, appear soul-vex'd, And begin, 'Why to me?' PAULINA Had she such power, She had just cause. LEONTES She had; and would incense me To murder her I married. PAULINA I should so. Were I the ghost that walk'd, I'ld bid you mark Her eye, and tell me for what dull part in't You chose her; then I'ld shriek, that even your ears Should rift to hear me; and the words that follow'd Should be 'Remember mine.' LEONTES Stars, stars, And all eyes else dead coals! Fear thou no wife; I'll have no wife, Paulina. PAULINA Will you swear Never to marry but by my free leave? LEONTES Never, Paulina; so be blest my spirit! PAULINA Then, good my lords, bear witness to his oath. CLEOMENES You tempt him over-much. PAULINA Unless another, As like Hermione as is her picture, Affront his eye. CLEOMENES Good madam,-- PAULINA I have done. Yet, if my lord will marry,--if you will, sir, No remedy, but you will,--give me the office To choose you a queen: she shall not be so young As was your former; but she shall be such As, walk'd your first queen's ghost, it should take joy To see her in your arms. LEONTES My true Paulina, We shall not marry till thou bid'st us. PAULINA That Shall be when your first queen's again in breath; Never till then. [Enter a Gentleman] Gentleman One that gives out himself Prince Florizel, Son of Polixenes, with his princess, she The fairest I have yet beheld, desires access To your high presence. LEONTES What with him? he comes not Like to his father's greatness: his approach, So out of circumstance and sudden, tells us 'Tis not a visitation framed, but forced By need and accident. What train? Gentleman But few, And those but mean. LEONTES His princess, say you, with him? Gentleman Ay, the most peerless piece of earth, I think, That e'er the sun shone bright on. PAULINA O Hermione, As every present time doth boast itself Above a better gone, so must thy grave Give way to what's seen now! Sir, you yourself Have said and writ so, but your writing now Is colder than that theme, 'She had not been, Nor was not to be equall'd;'--thus your verse Flow'd with her beauty once: 'tis shrewdly ebb'd, To say you have seen a better. Gentleman Pardon, madam: The one I have almost forgot,--your pardon,-- The other, when she has obtain'd your eye, Will have your tongue too. This is a creature, Would she begin a sect, might quench the zeal Of all professors else, make proselytes Of who she but bid follow. PAULINA How! not women? Gentleman Women will love her, that she is a woman More worth than any man; men, that she is The rarest of all women. LEONTES Go, Cleomenes; Yourself, assisted with your honour'd friends, Bring them to our embracement. Still, 'tis strange [Exeunt CLEOMENES and others] He thus should steal upon us. PAULINA Had our prince, Jewel of children, seen this hour, he had pair'd Well with this lord: there was not full a month Between their births. LEONTES Prithee, no more; cease; thou know'st He dies to me again when talk'd of: sure, When I shall see this gentleman, thy speeches Will bring me to consider that which may Unfurnish me of reason. They are come. [Re-enter CLEOMENES and others, with FLORIZEL and PERDITA] Your mother was most true to wedlock, prince; For she did print your royal father off, Conceiving you: were I but twenty-one, Your father's image is so hit in you, His very air, that I should call you brother, As I did him, and speak of something wildly By us perform'd before. Most dearly welcome! And your fair princess,--goddess!--O, alas! I lost a couple, that 'twixt heaven and earth Might thus have stood begetting wonder as You, gracious couple, do: and then I lost-- All mine own folly--the society, Amity too, of your brave father, whom, Though bearing misery, I desire my life Once more to look on him. FLORIZEL By his command Have I here touch'd Sicilia and from him Give you all greetings that a king, at friend, Can send his brother: and, but infirmity Which waits upon worn times hath something seized His wish'd ability, he had himself The lands and waters 'twixt your throne and his Measured to look upon you; whom he loves-- He bade me say so--more than all the sceptres And those that bear them living. LEONTES O my brother, Good gentleman! the wrongs I have done thee stir Afresh within me, and these thy offices, So rarely kind, are as interpreters Of my behind-hand slackness. Welcome hither, As is the spring to the earth. And hath he too Exposed this paragon to the fearful usage, At least ungentle, of the dreadful Neptune, To greet a man not worth her pains, much less The adventure of her person? FLORIZEL Good my lord, She came from Libya. LEONTES Where the warlike Smalus, That noble honour'd lord, is fear'd and loved? FLORIZEL Most royal sir, from thence; from him, whose daughter His tears proclaim'd his, parting with her: thence, A prosperous south-wind friendly, we have cross'd, To execute the charge my father gave me For visiting your highness: my best train I have from your Sicilian shores dismiss'd; Who for Bohemia bend, to signify Not only my success in Libya, sir, But my arrival and my wife's in safety Here where we are. LEONTES The blessed gods Purge all infection from our air whilst you Do climate here! You have a holy father, A graceful gentleman; against whose person, So sacred as it is, I have done sin: For which the heavens, taking angry note, Have left me issueless; and your father's blest, As he from heaven merits it, with you Worthy his goodness. What might I have been, Might I a son and daughter now have look'd on, Such goodly things as you! [Enter a Lord] Lord Most noble sir, That which I shall report will bear no credit, Were not the proof so nigh. Please you, great sir, Bohemia greets you from himself by me; Desires you to attach his son, who has-- His dignity and duty both cast off-- Fled from his father, from his hopes, and with A shepherd's daughter. LEONTES Where's Bohemia? speak. Lord Here in your city; I now came from him: I speak amazedly; and it becomes My marvel and my message. To your court Whiles he was hastening, in the chase, it seems, Of this fair couple, meets he on the way The father of this seeming lady and Her brother, having both their country quitted With this young prince. FLORIZEL Camillo has betray'd me; Whose honour and whose honesty till now Endured all weathers. Lord Lay't so to his charge: He's with the king your father. LEONTES Who? Camillo? Lord Camillo, sir; I spake with him; who now Has these poor men in question. Never saw I Wretches so quake: they kneel, they kiss the earth; Forswear themselves as often as they speak: Bohemia stops his ears, and threatens them With divers deaths in death. PERDITA O my poor father! The heaven sets spies upon us, will not have Our contract celebrated. LEONTES You are married? FLORIZEL We are not, sir, nor are we like to be; The stars, I see, will kiss the valleys first: The odds for high and low's alike. LEONTES My lord, Is this the daughter of a king? FLORIZEL She is, When once she is my wife. LEONTES That 'once' I see by your good father's speed Will come on very slowly. I am sorry, Most sorry, you have broken from his liking Where you were tied in duty, and as sorry Your choice is not so rich in worth as beauty, That you might well enjoy her. FLORIZEL Dear, look up: Though Fortune, visible an enemy, Should chase us with my father, power no jot Hath she to change our loves. Beseech you, sir, Remember since you owed no more to time Than I do now: with thought of such affections, Step forth mine advocate; at your request My father will grant precious things as trifles. LEONTES Would he do so, I'ld beg your precious mistress, Which he counts but a trifle. PAULINA Sir, my liege, Your eye hath too much youth in't: not a month 'Fore your queen died, she was more worth such gazes Than what you look on now. LEONTES I thought of her, Even in these looks I made. [To FLORIZEL] But your petition Is yet unanswer'd. I will to your father: Your honour not o'erthrown by your desires, I am friend to them and you: upon which errand I now go toward him; therefore follow me And mark what way I make: come, good my lord. [Exeunt] THE WINTER'S TALE ACT V SCENE II Before LEONTES' palace. [Enter AUTOLYCUS and a Gentleman] AUTOLYCUS Beseech you, sir, were you present at this relation? First Gentleman I was by at the opening of the fardel, heard the old shepherd deliver the manner how he found it: whereupon, after a little amazedness, we were all commanded out of the chamber; only this methought I heard the shepherd say, he found the child. AUTOLYCUS I would most gladly know the issue of it. First Gentleman I make a broken delivery of the business; but the changes I perceived in the king and Camillo were very notes of admiration: they seemed almost, with staring on one another, to tear the cases of their eyes; there was speech in their dumbness, language in their very gesture; they looked as they had heard of a world ransomed, or one destroyed: a notable passion of wonder appeared in them; but the wisest beholder, that knew no more but seeing, could not say if the importance were joy or sorrow; but in the extremity of the one, it must needs be. [Enter another Gentleman] Here comes a gentleman that haply knows more. The news, Rogero? Second Gentleman Nothing but bonfires: the oracle is fulfilled; the king's daughter is found: such a deal of wonder is broken out within this hour that ballad-makers cannot be able to express it. [Enter a third Gentleman] Here comes the Lady Paulina's steward: he can deliver you more. How goes it now, sir? this news which is called true is so like an old tale, that the verity of it is in strong suspicion: has the king found his heir? Third Gentleman Most true, if ever truth were pregnant by circumstance: that which you hear you'll swear you see, there is such unity in the proofs. The mantle of Queen Hermione's, her jewel about the neck of it, the letters of Antigonus found with it which they know to be his character, the majesty of the creature in resemblance of the mother, the affection of nobleness which nature shows above her breeding, and many other evidences proclaim her with all certainty to be the king's daughter. Did you see the meeting of the two kings? Second Gentleman No. Third Gentleman Then have you lost a sight, which was to be seen, cannot be spoken of. There might you have beheld one joy crown another, so and in such manner that it seemed sorrow wept to take leave of them, for their joy waded in tears. There was casting up of eyes, holding up of hands, with countenances of such distraction that they were to be known by garment, not by favour. Our king, being ready to leap out of himself for joy of his found daughter, as if that joy were now become a loss, cries 'O, thy mother, thy mother!' then asks Bohemia forgiveness; then embraces his son-in-law; then again worries he his daughter with clipping her; now he thanks the old shepherd, which stands by like a weather-bitten conduit of many kings' reigns. I never heard of such another encounter, which lames report to follow it and undoes description to do it. Second Gentleman What, pray you, became of Antigonus, that carried hence the child? Third Gentleman Like an old tale still, which will have matter to rehearse, though credit be asleep and not an ear open. He was torn to pieces with a bear: this avouches the shepherd's son; who has not only his innocence, which seems much, to justify him, but a handkerchief and rings of his that Paulina knows. First Gentleman What became of his bark and his followers? Third Gentleman Wrecked the same instant of their master's death and in the view of the shepherd: so that all the instruments which aided to expose the child were even then lost when it was found. But O, the noble combat that 'twixt joy and sorrow was fought in Paulina! She had one eye declined for the loss of her husband, another elevated that the oracle was fulfilled: she lifted the princess from the earth, and so locks her in embracing, as if she would pin her to her heart that she might no more be in danger of losing. First Gentleman The dignity of this act was worth the audience of kings and princes; for by such was it acted. Third Gentleman One of the prettiest touches of all and that which angled for mine eyes, caught the water though not the fish, was when, at the relation of the queen's death, with the manner how she came to't bravely confessed and lamented by the king, how attentiveness wounded his daughter; till, from one sign of dolour to another, she did, with an 'Alas,' I would fain say, bleed tears, for I am sure my heart wept blood. Who was most marble there changed colour; some swooned, all sorrowed: if all the world could have seen 't, the woe had been universal. First Gentleman Are they returned to the court? Third Gentleman No: the princess hearing of her mother's statue, which is in the keeping of Paulina,--a piece many years in doing and now newly performed by that rare Italian master, Julio Romano, who, had he himself eternity and could put breath into his work, would beguile Nature of her custom, so perfectly he is her ape: he so near to Hermione hath done Hermione that they say one would speak to her and stand in hope of answer: thither with all greediness of affection are they gone, and there they intend to sup. Second Gentleman I thought she had some great matter there in hand; for she hath privately twice or thrice a day, ever since the death of Hermione, visited that removed house. Shall we thither and with our company piece the rejoicing? First Gentleman Who would be thence that has the benefit of access? every wink of an eye some new grace will be born: our absence makes us unthrifty to our knowledge. Let's along. [Exeunt Gentlemen] AUTOLYCUS Now, had I not the dash of my former life in me, would preferment drop on my head. I brought the old man and his son aboard the prince: told him I heard them talk of a fardel and I know not what: but he at that time, overfond of the shepherd's daughter, so he then took her to be, who began to be much sea-sick, and himself little better, extremity of weather continuing, this mystery remained undiscovered. But 'tis all one to me; for had I been the finder out of this secret, it would not have relished among my other discredits. [Enter Shepherd and Clown] Here come those I have done good to against my will, and already appearing in the blossoms of their fortune. Shepherd Come, boy; I am past moe children, but thy sons and daughters will be all gentlemen born. Clown You are well met, sir. You denied to fight with me this other day, because I was no gentleman born. See you these clothes? say you see them not and think me still no gentleman born: you were best say these robes are not gentlemen born: give me the lie, do, and try whether I am not now a gentleman born. AUTOLYCUS I know you are now, sir, a gentleman born. Clown Ay, and have been so any time these four hours. Shepherd And so have I, boy. Clown So you have: but I was a gentleman born before my father; for the king's son took me by the hand, and called me brother; and then the two kings called my father brother; and then the prince my brother and the princess my sister called my father father; and so we wept, and there was the first gentleman-like tears that ever we shed. Shepherd We may live, son, to shed many more. Clown Ay; or else 'twere hard luck, being in so preposterous estate as we are. AUTOLYCUS I humbly beseech you, sir, to pardon me all the faults I have committed to your worship and to give me your good report to the prince my master. Shepherd Prithee, son, do; for we must be gentle, now we are gentlemen. Clown Thou wilt amend thy life? AUTOLYCUS Ay, an it like your good worship. Clown Give me thy hand: I will swear to the prince thou art as honest a true fellow as any is in Bohemia. Shepherd You may say it, but not swear it. Clown Not swear it, now I am a gentleman? Let boors and franklins say it, I'll swear it. Shepherd How if it be false, son? Clown If it be ne'er so false, a true gentleman may swear it in the behalf of his friend: and I'll swear to the prince thou art a tall fellow of thy hands and that thou wilt not be drunk; but I know thou art no tall fellow of thy hands and that thou wilt be drunk: but I'll swear it, and I would thou wouldst be a tall fellow of thy hands. AUTOLYCUS I will prove so, sir, to my power. Clown Ay, by any means prove a tall fellow: if I do not wonder how thou darest venture to be drunk, not being a tall fellow, trust me not. Hark! the kings and the princes, our kindred, are going to see the queen's picture. Come, follow us: we'll be thy good masters. [Exeunt] THE WINTER'S TALE ACT V SCENE III A chapel in PAULINA'S house. [Enter LEONTES, POLIXENES, FLORIZEL, PERDITA, CAMILLO, PAULINA, Lords, and Attendants] LEONTES O grave and good Paulina, the great comfort That I have had of thee! PAULINA What, sovereign sir, I did not well I meant well. All my services You have paid home: but that you have vouchsafed, With your crown'd brother and these your contracted Heirs of your kingdoms, my poor house to visit, It is a surplus of your grace, which never My life may last to answer. LEONTES O Paulina, We honour you with trouble: but we came To see the statue of our queen: your gallery Have we pass'd through, not without much content In many singularities; but we saw not That which my daughter came to look upon, The statue of her mother. PAULINA As she lived peerless, So her dead likeness, I do well believe, Excels whatever yet you look'd upon Or hand of man hath done; therefore I keep it Lonely, apart. But here it is: prepare To see the life as lively mock'd as ever Still sleep mock'd death: behold, and say 'tis well. [PAULINA draws a curtain, and discovers HERMIONE standing like a statue] I like your silence, it the more shows off Your wonder: but yet speak; first, you, my liege, Comes it not something near? LEONTES Her natural posture! Chide me, dear stone, that I may say indeed Thou art Hermione; or rather, thou art she In thy not chiding, for she was as tender As infancy and grace. But yet, Paulina, Hermione was not so much wrinkled, nothing So aged as this seems. POLIXENES O, not by much. PAULINA So much the more our carver's excellence; Which lets go by some sixteen years and makes her As she lived now. LEONTES As now she might have done, So much to my good comfort, as it is Now piercing to my soul. O, thus she stood, Even with such life of majesty, warm life, As now it coldly stands, when first I woo'd her! I am ashamed: does not the stone rebuke me For being more stone than it? O royal piece, There's magic in thy majesty, which has My evils conjured to remembrance and From thy admiring daughter took the spirits, Standing like stone with thee. PERDITA And give me leave, And do not say 'tis superstition, that I kneel and then implore her blessing. Lady, Dear queen, that ended when I but began, Give me that hand of yours to kiss. PAULINA O, patience! The statue is but newly fix'd, the colour's Not dry. CAMILLO My lord, your sorrow was too sore laid on, Which sixteen winters cannot blow away, So many summers dry; scarce any joy Did ever so long live; no sorrow But kill'd itself much sooner. POLIXENES Dear my brother, Let him that was the cause of this have power To take off so much grief from you as he Will piece up in himself. PAULINA Indeed, my lord, If I had thought the sight of my poor image Would thus have wrought you,--for the stone is mine-- I'ld not have show'd it. LEONTES Do not draw the curtain. PAULINA No longer shall you gaze on't, lest your fancy May think anon it moves. LEONTES Let be, let be. Would I were dead, but that, methinks, already-- What was he that did make it? See, my lord, Would you not deem it breathed? and that those veins Did verily bear blood? POLIXENES Masterly done: The very life seems warm upon her lip. LEONTES The fixture of her eye has motion in't, As we are mock'd with art. PAULINA I'll draw the curtain: My lord's almost so far transported that He'll think anon it lives. LEONTES O sweet Paulina, Make me to think so twenty years together! No settled senses of the world can match The pleasure of that madness. Let 't alone. PAULINA I am sorry, sir, I have thus far stirr'd you: but I could afflict you farther. LEONTES Do, Paulina; For this affliction has a taste as sweet As any cordial comfort. Still, methinks, There is an air comes from her: what fine chisel Could ever yet cut breath? Let no man mock me, For I will kiss her. PAULINA Good my lord, forbear: The ruddiness upon her lip is wet; You'll mar it if you kiss it, stain your own With oily painting. Shall I draw the curtain? LEONTES No, not these twenty years. PERDITA So long could I Stand by, a looker on. PAULINA Either forbear, Quit presently the chapel, or resolve you For more amazement. If you can behold it, I'll make the statue move indeed, descend And take you by the hand; but then you'll think-- Which I protest against--I am assisted By wicked powers. LEONTES What you can make her do, I am content to look on: what to speak, I am content to hear; for 'tis as easy To make her speak as move. PAULINA It is required You do awake your faith. Then all stand still; On: those that think it is unlawful business I am about, let them depart. LEONTES Proceed: No foot shall stir. PAULINA Music, awake her; strike! [Music] 'Tis time; descend; be stone no more; approach; Strike all that look upon with marvel. Come, I'll fill your grave up: stir, nay, come away, Bequeath to death your numbness, for from him Dear life redeems you. You perceive she stirs: [HERMIONE comes down] Start not; her actions shall be holy as You hear my spell is lawful: do not shun her Until you see her die again; for then You kill her double. Nay, present your hand: When she was young you woo'd her; now in age Is she become the suitor? LEONTES O, she's warm! If this be magic, let it be an art Lawful as eating. POLIXENES She embraces him. CAMILLO She hangs about his neck: If she pertain to life let her speak too. POLIXENES Ay, and make't manifest where she has lived, Or how stolen from the dead. PAULINA That she is living, Were it but told you, should be hooted at Like an old tale: but it appears she lives, Though yet she speak not. Mark a little while. Please you to interpose, fair madam: kneel And pray your mother's blessing. Turn, good lady; Our Perdita is found. HERMIONE You gods, look down And from your sacred vials pour your graces Upon my daughter's head! Tell me, mine own. Where hast thou been preserved? where lived? how found Thy father's court? for thou shalt hear that I, Knowing by Paulina that the oracle Gave hope thou wast in being, have preserved Myself to see the issue. PAULINA There's time enough for that; Lest they desire upon this push to trouble Your joys with like relation. Go together, You precious winners all; your exultation Partake to every one. I, an old turtle, Will wing me to some wither'd bough and there My mate, that's never to be found again, Lament till I am lost. LEONTES O, peace, Paulina! Thou shouldst a husband take by my consent, As I by thine a wife: this is a match, And made between's by vows. Thou hast found mine; But how, is to be question'd; for I saw her, As I thought, dead, and have in vain said many A prayer upon her grave. I'll not seek far-- For him, I partly know his mind--to find thee An honourable husband. Come, Camillo, And take her by the hand, whose worth and honesty Is richly noted and here justified By us, a pair of kings. Let's from this place. What! look upon my brother: both your pardons, That e'er I put between your holy looks My ill suspicion. This is your son-in-law, And son unto the king, who, heavens directing, Is troth-plight to your daughter. Good Paulina, Lead us from hence, where we may leisurely Each one demand an answer to his part Perform'd in this wide gap of time since first We were dissever'd: hastily lead away. [Exeunt]